Mandy Moore Effect: Movies

Tagline: Heaven Help Us.

Official Description from Amazon: Mary (Jena Malone) is a good Christian girl who goes to a good Christian high school where she has good Christian friends, mainly Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), and a perfect Christian boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust). Her life seems perfect, until the day that she finds out that Dean may be gay. After "seeing" a vision of Jesus in a pool, she does everything in her power to help him turn straight, including offering up her virginity. But none of it helps because Dean's caught and sent to a "degayification" center and Mary ends up pregnant. It's during her time of need that she becomes real friends with the school's set of "misfits," including Cassandra (Eva Amurri), the school's only Jewish girl; Roland (Macaulay Culkin), Hilary Faye's wheelchair-bound brother, and Patrick (Patrick Fugit), the skateboarder son of the school's principal, Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan); whilst Hilary Faye turns her into a social outcast.

Mandy Moore's Role: In this comedic look at Christian faith, Mandy Moore plays Hilary Faye, the best friend of Mary (Jena Malone). Mary seems to have the perfect Christian girl image. Blessed with Christian friends, a Christian boyfriend, a Christian school... seems like heaven. But that all blows up in her face when she finds out her Christian boyfriend is gay. Believing that it is her duty to rectify her boyfriend's sexual orientation, she goes all out to fulfill her destiny. However, Mary is crushed to learn her boyfriend has been sent to an anti-gay camp.

Now pregnant, Mary's old friends begin to demonize her after their initial attempt to save her fails. Mary turns to a group of social outcasts with drastically different views on religion. The comedic drama, Saved! explores the morality of current issues involving evangelical churches, while somewhat respecting faith. However, the movie has received numerous political criticisms especially from Christians. However, there has been some acclaim regarding how true the movie is to the realities of Christian schools. The terse discipline and the idealized version of how teenagers are supposed to behave are often practiced in today's society. One must realized that the rules instilled by Jesus to maintained the perfect Christian image is just too much to handle, even for someone like Hilary Faye.

Mandy Moore portrays Hilary Faye, a teenage girl entering her senior year of high school. She worships Jesus and has devoted her life to being the perfect Christian girl. She's so popular at school, it's hard to differentiate who the other Christian kids look up to more, her or Jesus! Although Hilary Faye is a Christian girl, she unwittingly becomes the villain in this movie. How ironic is that? It had to take some guts for Mandy to appear in this movie; but looking at her track record, she seems to like these kinds of films. The themes presented are more global compared to her previous roles. Plus the character she played had an extreme perspective on the characteristics of Christianity. Hilary Faye is by no means Jamie Sullivan, even though both are deeply religious. Overlooking the fact that the two characters are in different movies, one can say Hilary Faye is the dual of Jamie Sullivan. Jamie was far less flamboyant and deeply confident about her beliefs in the Lord (She was also much more likeable). Hilary meanwhile, seemed insecure about her place with the Lord, despite the facade she displayed in public. Ultimately, this insecurity led to her downfall, thus emphasizing the near impossibility of adhering to every rule in the Bible. Heck, even Jamie didn't always play by the rules!

Overall, the movie takes a good look at religion in general, and the themes it displays turned out well in the context of the movie, even if they were a little controversial. Although this is technically Mandy's worst movie in terms of box-office numbers, the movie itself should not simply be tossed aside. Some parts are a drag, but it's still a pretty entertaining movie. If the movie doesn't suit your taste, just watch for Mandy. She even got to stretch out her vocal cords!

Movie Notes

Anne Hathaway, Moore's co-star in The Princess Diaries, was originally offered the role of Hilary, but the deal fell through.