I am sitting on a camping chair in the alley behind my friend Reed’s house. He is inside the yard—a concrete slab with a pocket of dirt where the first sprouts of his herb garden are beginning to emerge—sort of sitting but mostly sinking into one of those chairs that is banded with the same material as seatbelts. The bands at the base are broken from longtime use and his butt dips through the center of the seat. Both of us are wearing masks and holding Modelos. We have been together all afternoon–as together as two people can be while remaining six feet apart.
We are watching Saved!, the 2004 cult classic with all the markers of an early aught’s hit: Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, and premarital sex. The movie follows a teenage protagonist who, after sacrificing her virginity to “de-gay” her boyfriend, gets pregnant and begins to question the purity and pandering of her Christian lifestyle. It’s carried by the kind of ensemble cast that only movies of this era seem capable of; with characters whose volume is turned up just a notch too loud, whose traits operate as plot devices in obvious but utterly charming ways.
Case in point: our pregnant protagonist’s name is Mary.
Reed has propped the TV in the window of his kitchen so we can watch and drink together from a safe distance. Each time one of us cracks a beer, we cheers; grateful for this sliver of comfort and normalcy in a time that feels anything but.
As a kid, my VHS copy of Saved! belonged to a stack of treasured tapes—most of which were picked up during sales at Blockbuster or the annual Library Book Sale (where I also scored Titanic and a copy of Britney’s Baby One More Time on CD-rom). The raunchy combination of teenage hormones and Christianity were titillating as a pubescent Jewish preteen. Years later, I find myself repeatedly doing that thing one does when sharing a beloved piece of art—yes, this movie is art—with another.
“Wait, shhhh, the scene coming up is so good.”
Mary has just confirmed her fate at Planned Parenthood and happens to stumble across a giant concrete cross as she walks home. The music begins to swell as she walks towards the looming structure in her low-rise flares. She opens her arms and stares up and into this symbol of her wavering faith. A tiny logo purse dangles from her wrist. The music dies down again and, in a shaky but measured tone, Mary speaks.
“Shit.”
“Fuck.”
“Goddamn.”
The earnestness of this coming-of-age moment has always been one of my favorite examples of the movie’s quiet brilliance. There is a desperate—and often sexual—undertone in nearly every scene that beats against the performative altruism resting at the surface. At this moment, Mary breaks through. She gets angry.
Reed and I are giggling, but I’m also having another, new-to-me reaction.
While tickled by the drama as always, I also find myself envious of the release Mary gets from damning her God. I don’t believe in a God to damn and I would give anything for some faith to abuse right now.
Six weeks into a quarantined world, I’ve written only in fragments to avoid confrontation with my thoughts. The cadence of terror compresses my discernment, draws out my mood. Some days I stutter forward. Mostly, I rock back.
This motion feels a lot like listening to the cover of The Beach Boys’ song “God Only Knows” that opens the movie. The cloying sweetness of Mandy Moore’s voice hollows the song of any real resonance in the same way my feeble attempts at poetry do nothing but taunt the meaning they search for.
Or maybe it’s more like watching Moore’s character, Hilary Faye, the prayer-circle-leading, righteous queen bee, throw a bible at Mary, screaming “I am filled with God’s love!” after a failed—and misguided—exorcism. I’ve thought about it. If exorcism really worked, I think I might offer my soul for cleansing. Jena Malone, who plays our girl Mary, was “saved” three times before filming the movie. I love the idea of researching salvation. I suppose that’s what I’m doing as I write this–throwing holy objects at the things that embitter me, hoping for the best.
What does give me hope is the boundless sexuality, the kind so specific to teenage hormones and repression, that reverberates throughout all of Saved!:
Patrick Fugit–who played the young protagonist in Almost Famous—writhes on a cross in a gold speedo that leaves little to the imagination. Praise Jesus, indeed. The way Mary slowly turns in gym class to watch him jog by in a pooka shell necklace until Hilary Faye cuts the lusty moment short: “I know what you’re looking at Mary. And Jesus does too.” Absolutely everything about Cassandra, the token Jewish Heathen of American Eagle Christian High (played by Susan Sarandon’s just-as-smoldering daughter, Eva Amurri). She speaks in pig Latin and rips her top off at a morning assembly while faking a come-to-Jesus moment. She knocks knees with Macaulay Culkin’s paraplegic character Roland at a sidewalk cafe. Even the way she says “Piggly Wiggly,” when explaining to him how she once shoplifted a frozen Turkey wearing only a tube-top.
I’m convinced that a big part of what makes this randiness so charming in such a specific way is the low budget lighting. The crassness allows for our character’s pimply, textured skin, and choppy, gelled hair to play their own role. All of it makes me want to smooch someone at the mall.
But I digress. Amidst the steamy teenage heat and campy excellence, a well-rendered portrait of a group of weirdos trying to find the right kind of faith emerges. Saved! helped to teach me that those who practice faith in a reasonable way do not use God as a catch-all accountability blanket. That maybe, faith is something more like eating bon-bons in a messy, suburban walk-in closet while an illuminated quartz Jesus watches over you.
I hustle back to my sister’s house when the movie ends. My bladder is full after four Modelo’s and avoiding Reed’s bathroom for the sake of social distancing. After an afternoon spent outside with an old friend, it almost feels like a normal spring evening (other than the mask still strapped across my face). But it’s not. Right now, many of the same things that are forbidden to the kids in Saved! are forbidden to us. Not only are malls closed, but the world is scared, horny, and restless as we navigate a crisis. Confusing and misguided messages are being disseminated by self-anointed saviors. Desperation and faux altruism are clashing like plates on a fault line; we’re due for a big one any day.