Saved! (2004)

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Movie Mastery, why it's the podcast where we watch the movies that you direct us to watch. And of course, as always, you is the mysterious man who stands near our microphones. You, you who I look upon now. We know him only as you. You with black eyes and heart of coal. And shirt of 90s venom. Why? Why? Because I was the coolest venom.

So we watched Saved! Yeah. Someone sent us a minefield. Oh, yeah. Now, this is 2004, and it is a...

It's a teen comedy. It's a teen high school comedy with a thick smear of Christian jokes. Yes. So the entire thing takes place at a Christian high school. Yeah. And it, man, it lays on pretty thick with a lot of the... The first 20 minutes in particular, it's just like, okay, I get it. You just move on. You set the premise up effectively. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. The writer and director, Brian Danley, is gay and went to a Christian high school, had a Christian upbringing, was one of those things where he's like, yeah, all the stuff in this.

movie is like from what things I experienced growing up and stuff like that I'm sure yeah you can you can see the signs of that everywhere but it is also one of those things where especially for the first 20 minutes you're like man, you are really laying it on thick. Uh-huh. It's like, hey, did you know that Christians are hypocrites? Yeah. Did you get it? Also, they're dumb and stupid. It's just like, God damn. All right, we get it. None of them really mean it. They're just using it to social... Yeah, okay. Everyone knows Christians. You're not telling us anything new. It is a little much. It gets much better as it goes on, and we start to get a few more of the more grounded and interesting characters and interactions that happen, but it just... It really does start out pretty bad. And once you... If you kind of just watch it without...

thinking that it's supposed to be a really heavy takedown of Christian high school experience or just like ultra Christian towns, then it's just a generic, it's basically a worst 10 things I hate about you or something like that. It's got, it's Christian Mean Girls. Yeah, it's Christian Mean Girls or a high school movie of your choice. Yes. And yeah, this is definitely one that of course, going through the beginning and all of the bits in this, I was like, oh, what a wonderful minefield to be in where I have to talk about Christianity and Being gay and being an outsider for religious reasons and all of these various things that go on in this movie. And I'm like, ha ha, wonderful. Thank you. I hadn't started it yet when you were like, I just finished watching it and this is going to be rough. And then I watched it and I was like, ah, not really. You can pretty much describe the entirety of the Christianity of this as like a lens filter they put on it. Otherwise, it's just dumb high school students do dumb things because they're high school students and peer pressure is bad. Also because their parents are dumb. But that's just every high school movie, so I don't...

It's fine. Everything's fine. Macaulay Culkin is enjoyable. I gotta say, I think Culkin might be my number one person in this movie as far as like, oh, I actually enjoyed what you were doing in this and how you represented what you were doing. He's doing deadpan, which he's very good at and works for the character role. Yeah. And it's just fine. Especially because, you know, you've got to have the bad girl who turns out to be the good girl by the end and she is playing it over the top to a crazy degree at the start. So much so that when she does the immediate flip into being everybody's best friend towards the end, you're like, wait a minute. I missed the other part.

But yeah, it's fine. I don't know that you really need to see it, but it's fine. Yeah, I mean... You probably already have. It's definitely a movie where I'm like, if you, like me, grew up in a very Christian household, went to a Christian high school and elementary school, had a lot of that upbringing, there's a lot of stuff in this that you're like, ah, yes, I know what they're getting at. But even then, I'm like...

There is a lot of stuff that's painted with very heavy brushes on this. Well, I mean, to be fair, you did go to Christian elementary school and high school and have a pastor for a father, but you did almost all of that primarily in California, where you can tell this is Texas. I think the actual place this is supposed to be is like... not Texas, more Midwest-y. You can see someone's license plate in this. Oh, okay, yeah. There is a character who tries to run away to San Francisco, so we know it's not set there. No, indeed not. But otherwise, it could be set in any town USA, provided that town has been Maryland, aggressively taken over by evangelicals in particular. Yes. So, you know, I mean, non-spoiler review, it's not really one of the better of these types of, like...

you know, teen comedies in my opinion. No, I mean, I only laughed like twice maybe. So it's, you know, it's an okay movie, but it isn't sharply funny or anything, which is what I think I'm sure is what it was shooting for. Yeah. And I would say the, the whole, like, you know, the whole backdrop of like Christianity and all of the various things that it is both, you know, making fun of and shooting down and things like that. I'm like, it doesn't.

help the script or the plot or anything. Like, there's not a lot there that I'm like, oh, this is adding something extra that would have been missing if it was taken out. Yeah. But ultimately, it's so Mean Girls that the, it's almost just like, what if Mean Girls also made fun of Born Again Christians? Like, you have the point where the main mean girl loses a friend and so she adopts a doofy friend and treats her like shit for the rest of the movie. And you're like, wow, I have seen that in like seven other movies already. Yeah. I've even seen it with Heather Matarazzo being the doofy friend before.

And I think with Mandy Moore being the mean friend before. Well, I mean, the two of them were both in, I believe, Princess Diaries together? That is correct, yes. There we go. Oh, and it turned out that Anne Hathaway was supposed to get the part that Mandy Moore had in this, so even more Princess Diaries shit. I'm okay with Mandy Moore's role in this. She did fine. She plays the titular mean girl of it. It's not titular because it's not called Mean Girls. She plays the titular saved. Hello, I'm saved. Exclamation point. But she does a fine job in this.

All right, let's go ahead, play a little music. We'll come back. We're going to get into the full spoiler review and tell you everything that happens in 2004's Saved! Exclamation point. You never need to doubt it. I'll make you so sure about it. God only knows what I'd be without you.

We're back. It is time to talk about Saved. And we're going to start with a special mention for how shitty that Natalie Maines cover of God Only Knows that this starts with is. Man, God Only Knows is a fucking great song. It's a banger. It's a good song. It's a classic for a reason. Yeah. I mean, they used it in the fucking Bioshock Infinite game, and I was like, oh, what a fun cover you have in here where you've done something interesting with it. And then this movie was like, but what if we made a cover?

That was bad? The cover was like, Natalie Main's doing it, but it sounds like one of Christina Aguilera covered it. Because it's like, they took the regular song, but then when they get to the only part of that song anyone gives a shit about, the back and forth chorus, where they've got the counterpoint singing behind. And she's like, well, instead of singing the same thing so that it's counterpoint with you guys, what if I went all up and down the scale and warbled through my version of the line every time? And then I'd stop and say things like, come on, guys, in the middle of it. Would that make it 10 times worse? Good. I was shooting for 12, but I'll settle. Ugh, so annoying.

So we have our main character for this is Mary, played by Jan Malone. And she is dating Dean, a very gay teenager. Yes, an obviously gay teenager. But of course, the beginning of this film is all her running through. It's Mary's mental. What am I looking for? It's her inner monologue where she is going through how perfect of a life she has as a Christian teenager and how everything's going just right for her. I mean, the most.

terrible thing to start out with is like, oh yeah, I was raised Christian and everyone told me God has a reason for doing everything, including my father dying when I was like four. And then I attempted to kill myself because they kept telling me that he was with the angels in heaven and I wanted to go join him. And I'm like, hey, what a wonderful thing to talk about how fucked up it is to tell children certain things. No, when we were talking about how the first 20 minutes or so this movie is laid on too thick, a lot of it is this opening bit where she's describing her absolutely horrible sounding life and only in the glowingest of terms where she's like... I tried for quite a long time to find father with the angels, but they told me not to. Eventually, I recommitted my life to Jesus Christ in all ways and forever. A difficult decision, especially for a three-year-old, but I persevered. You know, it's that kind of stuff. So it's just that for a long time. And it goes as far as...

They get to a point where she reveals that her and her boyfriend, Dean, have a habit of whispering secrets to each other underwater in a pool. That's like their kid gimmick. Yeah, that's their cute thing is they'll both go underwater and just yell their secret underwater so no one else can hear it. Yeah. And, you know, Dean, of course, at this point, it is the summer before their senior year, and he reveals that he thinks he is gay. Yeah, he just goes, I think I'm gay. And she just, underwater, says, what? He's like, I think I'm gay. He heard her say what and didn't realize that she was shocked, but rather just couldn't quite make out what he said. Yeah. And then she's so shocked by this that she tries to jump back up out of the pool.

and knocks herself unconscious, or near unconscious, on the ladder, the metal ladder piece that's under the water. Yeah, so she gets saved by the person who is working on their house doing some manner of construction that we never see after this, but, you know, he's got that sort of Jesus-y look to him. Yeah, personally, I thought he didn't look a thing like Jesus. But more than you'll ever know. But he dives in to get her in jeans and boots. And so she sees this shirtless jeaned figure swimming at her. And because, of course, she's, you know, middle American, born again Christian. And she's just been hit on the head very hard. She's like, yeah, I think Jesus has a six pack and wore jeans. That sounds right. Yeah. It's weird he doesn't have an AK-47 on him. Oh, I mean, the beginning of this is them erecting and painting a giant Jesus like statue at their school. And of course, Macaulay Culkin being like.

Hey, I don't think Jesus was white. They're like, of course he was white. What else would he be? I think my favorite thing about that Jesus stat or sign thing that they are painting at the beginning of the movie is that you see it routinely throughout the film and it has a very obvious crack along its neck where later in the climax of the film, its head will fall off. Yes. You can just see it the whole time. Like, oh, look at that. You can see the line where its head's going to come loose. But yeah, she's basically going through the soliloquy of a perfect life and then it gets interrupted by that moment when Jesus...

Jesus, quote unquote, swims to get her. He also says, hey, Dean's real confused right now. You have to do everything in your power, and I mean everything your body can do to convince him that he's straight. Yeah, you have to save him because that's what this whole thing is about. Yeah. And so she resolves to basically dedicate the rest of the summer to convincing Dean that he is not gay by escalatingly allowing him to do things that she would have considered prior to be unchristian. Yes. So she makes out with him. She puts his hands on her boobs in a workmanlike fashion. That's pretty great. Anything? Anything? Okay, try both hands. Anything?

It's interesting to me, watching this movie, as the character of Dean, which is sort of the obvious stand-in for the director-writer, feels... like a much from the beginning, better, more well-rounded character than everyone else. Cause like he doesn't have a problem coming out to his girlfriend immediately. Yeah. And he's very confident. He's just like, you know, when we see him later in the movie, when he comes back from being sent to one of those, like pray the gay away places, he's like, no, I've decided, fuck that. I am who I am. And also I'm still Christian and fuck you. I should be here. Yeah. Basically he is the mouthpiece of the director to a degree that makes it kind of obvious that he's the mouthpiece for the director. Why? If he was, if he was female, I think people would still be accusing him of Mary suing.

But it's not bad. It's nice to see a character that's confidently gay and happy to be sent to one of those Pray the Gay Away camps because there's going to be gay guys there. I mean, that's not why he is. He originally was like, oh, I'm going to try and beat this thing. Yeah. And then he's like, oh, wait a minute. No, I just am who I am. Well, you only get like two scenes of him in the Mercy Camp place. One time he calls Mary just to see how she's doing. And he gets like a slap on the back. And a guy just goes, hey, some honorific. Hey, buddy. Or something like that. And she's like, who's that? Oh, that's my roommate. He's the gayest one here. He's so gay.

and he's got like a sense of awe in his voice he's like excited and then there's a single there's a montage towards the end when everyone's life is at its absolute worst and we get a single pan across his mercy house like dorm room with his boyfriend and him both with boyfriend asleep and him lying awake and staring intently at his boyfriend and honestly you haven't seen them in so long and you've that you're like wait wait i had to back it up who the fuck was that wait hold on was that was that the The new boyfriend? What happened there? Well, I mean, they're not said to be boyfriends or anything until the end of the movie. Until the very end of the movie, but you can see him looking longingly at him. At a guy. Yeah. No, that is the boyfriend. I know, I'm saying, but at that moment, I do not know who he is. Yeah, well, you do, because he was introduced earlier as his roommate during the phone conversation, and you can see his face, and now you can see it again.

So you can. Anyway. Yeah. So Mary has what she can do. A little lamb. She's a member of the meanest girl in school or the most pious girl in school. Hillary Faye's group. They call themselves the Christian Jewels. Yep. And they are basically the praise band for the school. And this is one of those things where I'm like.

They, I'm sure that in certain Christian schools, it is much more like focused and forced and things like this because things like this actually happen. Because I'm like growing up in a Catholic school and I mean, Catholic all boys high school, you know, mandatory. You had to take religion. It was one of the classes you always had all the time. And.

But the level in which they force it is so much more in this, where it's like, all right, we're going to start out with full praise sessions, and the movie does its best to very much present the Christianity that is shown in this as being very shallow. Yes. Especially in the beginning, it's all like, what is this about? We're not saying anything, you know, specific from the Bible. There's no lessons. There's no, this is, you know, a way in which to learn to live your life. The whole thing is just, hey, Jesus, he's a super cool dude, and we all praise him, and we all love Jesus, and Jesus is great. Isn't that right? The closest thing you get to any kind of religious ideology here is almost entirely just modern era conservatism, where it's just like, save yourself for marriage. That's what Jesus would want. It's just stuff like that. There's no, like, example or lesson or reasons provided. It's just...

Generic mantras. Yeah. It's the kind of thing where it's like, we're going to try and get to the cool kids of the day. And you see that a lot with the pastor Skip, the person who was also the principal of this, who's just like, yeah, I want the kids to think Jesus is hip and cool. And he's the modern day celebrity. Yeah. He is effectively, there's a line in this movie where you're above or below the call sheet. If you're above the call sheet, then you're a hypocrite. And if you're below, then you're not interesting enough to bother being a hypocrite. But everyone above it is a hypocrite. And he's like the least important person who gets to be one because he is having an affair in spirit, if not in body with Mary's mom.

I mean, he is definitely having an affair in body with Mary's mom. Yeah. Eventually. Yes, but at the beginning of the movie, I don't think he is. I think the two of them are going on retreats together and enjoying each other's company, but they haven't crossed the line yet. Yeah, one of the things we get is actually when Mary, during the summer, right before everything starts, has sex with Dean to try and convince him that he's not gay, her mom is off in Florida on some retreat and Pastor Skip is there as well. And that's sort of the, oh, this is where that romance sparks. Yeah, honestly, when you watch that scene, if you're mean, you didn't have a full religious upbringing because you got kicked out of church, then you think, oh, they're fucking.

But later on in the movie, it's revealed that no, they're not. They've just been not quite fucking for quite some time. Yeah, it's the, I feel too guilty to act on this, but I don't want to stop pretending I'm going to. Yeah, like her dance card is clear. Her husband died. But Pastor Skip is non-divorced, but estranged. Yes. And is pretending that they aren't even estranged. He's living a life where he's telling everybody that she's off on a missionary trip. Which she is. Yeah. The whole thing is just, oh, well, she wants to be divorced, but he is like, that's not what you do as a Christian. Yes. So he is part of the...

Above a certain bar, everyone's a hypocrite. Yeah. And it's just, you know, you can definitely tell this movie was written by someone who had some deep-seated pain that was brought on by being brought up in this kind of setting. Oh, yeah. I do like, we get eventually Pastor Skip's son, Patrick, who is...

basically the stand-in for the, what does the good Christian look like? And he's like, yeah, I, you know, I believe in religion, I try and do my best, but he's also like, I accept everyone and I'm not trying to, like, be an asshole about stuff. Yeah, to the reason, earliest on when I was saying that this movie reminded me a lot of 10 Things I Hate About You in particular, it was because he reminded me a lot of Heath Ledger's performance in that, where he starts out seeming like a sort of badass because he arrives on a skateboard from some, like... mission. He was off on his mom's mission trip for a while. Yeah, he was skateboarding for Christ. Yeah, and so he looks like the Newtown badass and everyone's a little intimidated by him. But as soon as you talk to him, she's like, hey, how you doing? Yeah, no, I like skateboarding. What's up? I'm mean to the mean people and I'm nice to the nice people. I'm a good dude. Yeah, Mandy Moore's character, Hilary Faye, of course, is like, ooh, how many savages did you save? He's like, mostly I just skateboarded. I wasn't really trying to save people. Yeah, so that's where I was pulling that. It was mostly from him. He's a nice character. But that's why the beginning feels like it's laying it on so thick is outside of Macaulay Culkin's Roland, who in the beginning of the film doesn't have a lot to do, every single character we see is...

Someone that throughout the film is going to be like the huge hypocrite characters. We don't spend any time with anyone that has any sort of like... remotely grounded or down-to-earth sense of things. Yeah. So, effectively, Mary starts the movie in the Mean Girl Club, which is just called the Christian Jewels. There's at least one other member that we know about. Veronica. Veronica. She's a minor character who just serves to be sort of a backup Mean Girl. Yeah, just there to be like, her parents saved her from Vietnam savages and raised her to be actually Christian. Yeah, and then so when she's off to school, she's riding in Hilary Faye's van, which she doesn't want a van. She was allowed to get a Lexus E250 or whatever the fuck, but she had to get a van because Roland is wheelchair-bound. Yes. And he also is very standoffish, very deadpan, and does not particularly care for his sister.

So in the beginning of it, she's doing all this like passive-aggressive bullshit she's throwing at him where she's like, Roland is so lucky. He's sitting there in headphones trying to ignore them. Roland is so lucky. If we were living in China, I would have been killed because I would have been a girl and useless. And then where would you be, Roland? Who would help you then? Then where would you be? And he just goes, China. Yeah. One of the best jokes in the opening of this film. Yeah. Like I said, I had like two laughs and one of them was just him going, China. Yeah. Where would you be, China? Great. Thank you. Thank you, Macaulay Culkin. Yeah. Love him in this. It's a rare mid-era appearance of Macaulay Culkin.

The whole thing with Hilary Faye in this with Manny Moore's character is, of course, she is the religion as a social climbing thing where how good you are as far as how good of a Christian you are is directly equating to, you know, how good you can be in front of other people and how much you can get out of it. Yeah. So she is already from the beginning of the movie has already effectively learned to weaponize faith so as to social climb. Yeah. And so being like, oh, I have a differently abled brother. And so the fact that I'm driving him around.

you have to acknowledge the fact that I'm being a good person is a big part of it. It's not just that I have to do this, it's I need to say it out loud and you need to tell me how good I am for doing this. Exactly. She requires constant praise and she's, as far as we can tell, there's like two teachers in the whole school. So Pastor Skip is always the recipient of all of her constant attempts to show value. I mean, that and her other students. Yes, anyone she comes across, really. Yes, because, I mean, the Christian jewels are basically her yes-men of just like, all right, I'm going to tell you a thing I did and everyone needs to go, well, that's so good of you. Yeah.

So the movie switches from dribbly montage with a girl not understanding their life is actually shitty to hard reality when she's on her way back to the first day of school in the van and they stop to pick up her boyfriend, Dean. This is after she's had sex with him, thinking that Jesus needs her to. Yeah. He's not there. Her parents have sent him off to a Pray the Gay Away camp. And then she makes the extreme tactical error, as she finds this out alone, of telling Hilary Faye that. Yeah. I mean, I understand it's, I'm going to tell my friends about what happened. Yeah. And, you know, it's definitely a very shocking thing. But she, of course, is like, please don't tell anyone.

I don't want this to get out, which, you know, very clearly it will. Yeah, it takes a while. I almost forgot the point was happening, but later, basically, the way Hilary Faye functions, and it's smart writing for this, is that she doesn't go to blabbing immediately because that would not be effectively Christian. There's no capital in doing so. Well, yeah, because if she immediately just says to everyone, hey, Dean's gay and that sucks, she doesn't get anything out of it. In fact, what really happens is that, you know, mostly it's just going to be attention focused on Mary. Yes. So it's not until Patrick shows up as the new kid who's cool in school, and once he shows any sort of...

attraction or attention to Mary, then Hilary Faye's like, oh, now I need to tell people so that I can say, oh, yes, Patrick, she has a boyfriend and he is gay. This is a way for me to try and get something out of it to stop you from looking at her. Exactly. She's a toolkit expert. Her whole deal is she put that in her quiver and waited until she needed it and then deployed it and had a whole way of doing it virtuously, announcing that, oh, please come to a prayer circle to help us pray away Mary's boyfriend's faggotry.

Yeah, not a fan. There's a lot of terms used in this movie that you're going to go, oof, ouch, don't like that. Yeah, not a fan. No, sir. A lot of R slurs. Yeah, it's...

And it is one of those things where I'm like, yes, that is very much what the high schoolers of that time and especially in that area would be saying. I just don't like hearing it. I think one of my favorite moments in this movie is right after this, when she gets the semi-promise from Hilary Faye not to divulge the status of Dean, that Hilary Faye starts walking into school and passes a person that obviously has dwarfism. And she just goes, hi, Jerry. And then Jerry walks the fuck out of the movie. And I'm like, thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Jerry. I don't want you to be the recipient of anything. Well, I mean, for me, it's there to be like one of the main...

things of this is as long as you adhere to whatever the ideology is, then there isn't any like you don't have the discrimination or put downs that you would normally have. It's deviation that makes you a target. Yes. So having someone that's like, oh, they have dwarfism. They're a little person and they go by and Hilary Faye is just like, hi, I'm very friendly. They're very friendly back. There's no problems there. She's not mean to them at all because he hasn't done anything to make himself a target. I wasn't I wasn't saying I'm glad that you didn't go after him at that point. I'm just saying I'm glad that wherever he was going, he stayed there so that he didn't get caught up in the crossfire later.

Also, should we probably at this point mention the core thrust of the movie that Mary is pregnant after her single time having sex? Yeah. I mean, that's fine. Yeah. The other character we get that is a main character here is Cassandra, the one Jewish girl that goes to the school. And she's the bad girl. She smokes and she's... Drives a purple muscle car. Yeah, she swears and she's not a Christian. Yeah. And so it's...

it's just there to be like, oh, you see how someone who isn't Christian and seems so, you know, vulgar, but they actually care. Yeah. Yeah. So she is effectively a target for Hilary Faye and her little band of Christian jewels to kind of try and, again, demonstrate value rather than anything else. Be like, ooh, if I could convert her, that'd be worth a million Christianity points. Yeah. If I were to save Cassandra and make her be Christian, why everyone would know that I was the best. Yeah. And this is an important point because she also, if she gets rejected on this, she just gets mad immediately and just storms off.

So you can tell it's a very passive-aggressive attempt at conversion. The other thing you can see is that Hilary Faye has no converting chops. No. She just kind of walks up and is like, you know, you still have time to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Otherwise, I guess you could die a filthy heathen in hell. Okay, bye! Just like, that's as far as she's willing to shoot. Yeah. It's one of those things where, especially in this film, it's like, oh yeah, you have given all of the dogma to teenagers, and they are trying to use that in a way that they can, but they are, you know...

teenagers, and therefore not exactly the smartest. Yeah, you see it in every direction, because you see it with her using it, just weaponizing it to be mean and establish her status in the pecking order at the high school. But then you also see Mary using it to rationalize having sex with her boyfriend. Yeah. Not because she wants to, literally just because she's afraid that if she doesn't convert him from being gay, that he'll go to hell, and he'll break up with her. And he's the best Christian. He's so devout, and he's so good looking, and he also has dedicated himself entirely to his sport, which is figure skating, which I sure hope the director was a figure skater too, because otherwise that is too on the nose.

Yeah, the, I mean, the big thing is you have this idea of like, it's my personal job to save people as, you know, this through line for a lot of things in here. And you're like, uh, kind of not. Mostly it's your job to like help people rather than try to save them. Yeah. So yeah, now that pretty much sets the scene for how high school's going to go. We've got Hilary Faye being the mean girl, and then you've got Mary, who knows she's pregnant fairly early on because she's throwing up a lot, and then kind of has an epiphany. Once she's pregnant, she goes out and stands in front of a giant cross that's out in front of her school and looks at it, and her test of is any of this real or have I been wasting my life is to just start plaintively cursing at the cross. Shit! Fuck! And then she waits a long time and finally goes, God damn. And then, God damn!

And from that point forward, she is in questioning mode. She's Christian still. She still believes in God and everything. But now she's like, I feel like a lot of this shit is just performance. Yeah, we get a lot of questioning from her. And of course, Roland gets a relationship with Cassandra because he's like, I'm not Christian. He very early on tells Cassandra when they meet outside at one point, he's like, yeah, I don't believe in this. It's not my deal. Yeah, she's outside dodging that. We mentioned earlier that Hillary Faye's Christian Jewels is basically the praise band at the school.

So she's dodging their like Napoleon dynamite grade performance of some kind of interpretive dance. Um, and he goes out and smoking and he goes out there to try and bum a smoke offer and to hit on her. Uh, and, uh, yeah, she's like, she's like, uh, he asked her at first, so what's it like being Jewish? And she's like, I don't know. It's fine. What do you want? And he's like, I'm not really Christian. So he's, he's haltingly trying to hit on her. It's nice. Cause I didn't want these two characters to be too smooth. No, the, the relationship between Roland and Cassandra in this is the most natural in here because the relationship that we will get between Patrick and Mary is very twilight where it's just Patrick shows up, sees Mary once and is like,

I like you. And then she's like, fuck you and leave me alone. And he's like, nope, I will spend an entire school year pining over you, even though you will constantly reject me and tell me to go fuck myself. Yeah. He basically just keeps being perfect all the way through the movie. He's perfect even when she's not on screen. And there's, they don't have enough interactions for there to be like, Patrick, why do you care? Yeah. She's not, I mean.

you know, she's fine, but it's not like, ooh, she's the hottest girl ever and I need to be with her. He just sort of goes, yeah, you. Yeah, it's kind of important because we never really get a scene of her like being interesting at school either because once she figures out she's pregnant, her whole life is now committed to hiding that. Yeah, she's like, I'm going to sit in the back, have a big sweater on and draw zero attention to myself. Yeah, so we're not sure why he seems so gravitated or just drawn to her. It doesn't really make sense. Yeah, it's a full Twilight thing where it's just, ah, that mousy girl. She is the most interesting person ever. Yeah, so he's going to spend the whole movie just relentlessly being really nice to her and mean to all the correct people all the time. The only thing he doesn't quite get is he will occasionally hang out with Hilary Faye because she's around.

Because the thing is, he's not mean to anyone. No. He's just like, I'm a decent guy, and the only time I'm remotely mean or anything is if I'm standing up for someone who is currently being picked on. Yeah, there's a scene where he talks to his dad, because his dad's, again, he mentions Pastor Skip, pretty much the religious lead figure at the school, and there's a part where he's asking his dad some question about Christianity in general, and he gets this horrible platitude in response, and he just goes, why didn't you just give mom the divorce? And he's like, what are you talking about? We aren't divorced. She's just on a mission trip. And Patrick says, look, she told me everything over the summer. I know all that's going on between the two of you. Why didn't you just give her a divorce? Yeah, she wants the divorce. Why didn't you give it to her? And he's like, that's not what Christians do. Yeah.

So that's the closest he gets to being mean is basically calling out his dad and making him clearly very uncomfortable. Yeah. And in fact, that call out is the reason we mentioned earlier that he was about to hook up with Mary's mom. But then when that call out happened, he was like, oh shit, you're right. I've been almost about to cheat on my wife who I'm not willing to grant a divorce to. And so he cools it with the mom. That is the exact opposite of what happens. No, it's exactly. Because when he calls him out, it's Valentine's Day and that's when they go on the Valentine's Day. Yeah, and he's like, he is all set. He is all set at that Valentine's Day to break up with her. He's like, I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know what I want. I'm terrified. I think we need to break it off. The only thing I can keep thinking about is how I want to kiss you. And she guides him through it. The

Then kiss me. And guides him through it. He came there that night to call it off. And she talked him out of that. I mean, the thing is, he doesn't until she brings it up. Because he's just like, oh, I'm talking about a praise band that's coming to help. Yeah, he's rattling on about church. And you know what? That's because he's trying to cool it. He's rattling on about some bullshit church thing. He could tell instantly from looking at her that her eyes have glazed over so much she's a bunt cake. And he's still just like, I gotta keep doing this because this is anything but talking about how I want to put my lips on her lips. Oh yeah, but that's not cooling it because that was basically what they were doing beforehand. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. So, as we mentioned earlier, once Patrick starts showing interest in Mary, we get a scene of...

They fly her. They fly her the whole campus with a prayer circle at Hilary Faye's house for the poor gay Dean. Let's try to fix him. At this point, this is when the big falling out happens where Mary calls out Hilary Faye at the prayer circle. It's like, you're all just wasting time. None of this is going to do anything. And you don't even really care about Dean. You're just doing this because it'll earn popularity for you. Yeah. The clash between Mary and Hilary Faye at this point is the turning point as she gets the little pin that says Christian Jewels ripped off of her sweater and is like, you're not part of the Christian Jewels anymore. And so...

We get this split between them, and... This is when we pick up the... The Doof character gets added to the Christian Jewels because she was available. Yep. Heather Matarazzo's Tia. And, uh...

It's interesting to watch Tia get the glow up as this goes on. I know. Because when she starts, she is very awkward and kind of dorky looking. And the longer she stays in Hilary Faye's little group, like, the nicer the clothes are. The more her hair is done and she has makeup on and all of this stuff. But you also see her become more snooty and dismissive. Yeah, it's clear that she's basking in the orbit, but she doesn't quite belong, especially because she suffers abuse the entire time. She keeps getting told off and told to go places and so on. So you can tell that she's chafing under it as well. And that's good because she's part of the big crazy climax.

The Hilary Faye split at this point, of course, then very much highlights the difference there with, like, someone that is actually a friend and someone that is just there because it looks good for you to be there. Yes. Because when the two of them have a fight, there is never a moment throughout the rest of the film where either of them attempts to reconcile. Yeah. Neither of them really care, but when it...

when it gets to the point where Mary is like, I'm actually upset, like, I'm going to the bathroom crying because obviously I'm pregnant and this is fucking my shit up, it is Cassandra who is the one who's like, I can tell something that's wrong with you and I'm going to try and help. Oh, she knows exactly what's wrong with her because we have parallel tracks happening here. While Mary is having her crisis of faith and her falling out with the Christian jewels, Roland is starting to establish a relationship with Cassandra. He's meeting her outside of school, they're dating, they're establishing their boundaries. It's actually, their relationship is the best part of this. Oh yeah, 100%. But while they're having dinner or lunch at some coffee shop, they see...

Mary coming out of Planned Parenthood looking very sad and getting on a bus. Yeah. And it's the only other funny conversation. The other joke. The other joke where Cassandra immediately goes, oh, there's only one time Christian girls in this town come out of Planned Parenthood. Holy shit, she planted a pipe bomb? Yeah. And she goes, no, she's pregnant. And he looks back around and he goes, with Dean? I think the pipe bomb is more likely. Yeah. But yeah, so now she knows. And so she goes to confront her in the bathroom when she's having another round of morning sickness and so on. And Mary is consistently denying it. I'm not pregnant. I don't know what you're talking about. I was there to distribute pamphlets. And then Cassandra hugs her and she breaks down. And now we've got our two teams.

Because Roland and Cassandra have become the good influenced, not Christian people versus all these hypocritical Christians that don't quite know what they're doing. Yeah. And they take Mary into their arms. It's, I mean, it's definitely. It's one of the more heavy-handed bits in here where it's like, ah, yes, the only good people in this movie are the two who aren't Christian. And you're like, god damn, come on. Like, Patrick literally exists so that you can go, well, not all of them. Yeah, yeah, that's his only reason for being. Even at this point, her mom is, it's an interesting role for, I think it's Mary Louise Parker playing her mom in this. Yeah. And they play her dumb as a box of rocks for some reason until the very end of the movie. Oh, yeah. This is big.

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A couple things that are sort of implied in the background about what's been going on. I mean, one, obviously the death of her husband turned both of them fairly heavily towards Christianity. Yes. But also you can kind of tell that her mom has been like very down in a rut, hasn't really made any new relationships or friends. And it's her starting to have this relationship with Pastor Skip that makes her start to come out and be like.

Oh, I'm interested in someone. And it's defining her mood because there's a point where she's all where there's a point where Mary almost approaches her for help. And it's like, I can maybe talk to you about my problem and not keep it a secret from you. But her mom doesn't care and isn't interested because Patrick or Pastor Skip has canceled their last four prayer sessions. Yes. So she's grumpy and irritable because she isn't getting this almost relationship that she's been craving so much and kind of pushes her daughter out of the way. Completely stops her from being able to help Mary. And you also have this thing where, you know.

the the mercy house is the place that they have sent dean but it's not just for like pray the gateway it's basically anything that is inconvenient to christians yes it's including unwed mothers yes so when she's like hey you know what do you think about dean going to this place like would what's your thoughts on that she's like oh well you know having a kid is real hard and sometimes you can't deal with it and you you know like i don't i can drive a car but i don't know how to change the oil or you know fix the engine so i'll send them to the experts yeah and she's like she's like uh did you just compare me to a car yeah just the idea of oh i don't want to deal with you yeah so i'm gonna send you somewhere else well they'll where they will deal with you and you know roland has a line in here he's like places like that aren't for the people who get sent there it's for the people who send them yeah that's not that's not a rolling line it would be a good roll line but it's a patrick line is it yeah he says it on the scooter Oh, okay. When he's on the scooter, he's riding. Oh, that's right. That's right. It's when he's giving her a ride home. Yes, exactly. He finally badgers into letting him give her a ride home on his Vespa, and he says that to her when she explains the whole Dean situation, because it's right after that, and she's now worried. She had been sort of interested in this guy, but then after the whole Dean thing became public, she was like, oh, he's going to hate me. Everyone's going to hate me. And he pulls up, clearly uninterested in that. Literally, the scene before this was Hilary Faye and friends trying to exorcise her, dragging her into the van and being like, get out of her, evil spirit. That might be the scene that everyone remembers from this movie as well. Yes, throwing a Bible and saying, I'm filled with Christ's love. Yeah, because that made its way into a bunch of other stuff.

But it is one of the better scenes in the movie where they try to, like, Taliban-style black bag kidnap her into a... But the best part is they try to kidnap her into an unmarked van, but they have to drop the wheelchair ramp entrance first so it takes a long time. Yeah. But yeah, that scene's great. But then she gets picked up by Patrick, who's like, yeah, those places exist for the parents, not for the people who are there. They don't work. You even get a satirical line from Dean when he calls, and he's like, I'm trying to make this work. The brochure says it's worked on hundreds of people. And he really leans on the hundreds, so you know that he's pointing out how bad the odds actually are because of how many fucking people actually get sent to those shithole places. And 99% of them are just...

bitter and gay later. The, I mean, the thing is, a lot of that is the, like, Dean trying to be like, oh yeah, sure, they say it works on hundreds of people and Hilary Faye at one point being like, oh, everyone knows that the medical power of prayer is proven. Yes, yeah, get all of that. But yeah, once he finishes the scooter ride where he gives her that lesson, he asks her out. And of course, she's far too in her own world at the moment. So she's like, no, I'm not even dating. I'm just not dating right now. My life's too busy. And he goes, will you be dating tonight? Would you be dating tomorrow? Yeah, so he's not relenting. But he continues his path of effectively being perfect. The closest he gets to not being is when we get a scene of our three misfit characters hanging out at the mall food court. And he walks up with Hilary Faye. Yeah, but it just turns out that he just ran into her. Yeah, they both ran into each other at the mall. Yeah, and he says that immediately so that you don't even get any tension out of it. The moment he pulls her aside, because Hilary Faye is trying to lean into Cassandra, which is her pet project.

So Cassandra's like, please, do convert me. I want to convert to Christianity. I want to join the big party in heaven. Well, yeah, because this takes place around Christmas and she's like, as a Jew, I miss out on a lot of Christmas things. And because she can tell, like, Patrick and Mary both kind of want to see each other, she's like, oh, I'll distract Hilary Faye by pretending to be interested. Yeah, and the moment they get alone, he just goes, I just ran into her. I am not attempting to be with her at all. She is the worst. It is really important to me because my only character traits are being a relatively good dude and being very into you for some reason. So I have to immediately establish that there was nothing going on. Yeah.

And then he shows her the back room where they're storing all the Christmas stuff they haven't put out yet. And that's their kind of magical meet-cute moment where they like walk around the display room full of Christmas ornaments. Yes. But anyway, we should probably get some more of these beat points out. Well, yeah, because most of this is basically...

once we've established sort of the relationship with, uh, the trio of Mary Roland and Cassandra versus Hillary Faye and her folks, uh, we kind of just jump to like, uh, either holidays or various parts of the year because we're like, all right, well, let's jump a couple months forward and go to Valentine's day. Yes. Yeah. And there, there are trying, there is a point where. Hillary Faye gets mad enough at the three of them for something that she decides to get them expelled from school under her own power. I mean, that's way later. I'm sorry. That's like the end of the film. It is the end of the film. I thought we were nearly there. No. Then please take the wheel. No, so the... I am Jesus and I will take the wheel. I am blasphemous and I will take the wheel. No, the whole Valentine's Day thing is, of course, just another point where Hillary Faye tries to be like, hey, Patrick, here's a fucking Valentine's Day thing. And he's like, yeah, okay, that's great. Thanks. And then leaves Mary one in her locker. It's...

Just most of the segments of like, oh, we have to show what's going on. And again, this is the point where Pastor Skip really... commits to being in an actual cheating relationship with Mary's mom. We see a couple of big change moments right around this point. Yeah, we see that one. We see Pastor Skip confront Patrick, because it's his son, and is like, do not date Mary. Yeah, leave her alone. She's not great. She's connected to that heathen group. It'll make me look bad. It'll make you look bad. She is not ready for a relationship with you. Do not date her. And that's when Patrick lays into him about his mom. Yeah. And then we also get Hilary Faye getting mad about the fact that she's still getting more attention from Patrick and deciding to do something about it. Yeah.

And, you know, we go on through the year. We get, you know, check in a couple of times. It's mostly just we establish Roland has stolen Hillary Faye's credit cards a few times. And they go, you know, essentially maternity clothes shopping. It's hilarious because it's the classic high school getting dressed and coming out of the locker room and looking at the new clothes montage. But it's all just like Benetton maternity.

That's all I can do. Cassandra's whole thing is like, oh, as the bad girl, I've shoplifted and I know how to hide a bulge when I'm trying to steal something, so I know the clothes to get you that will effectively hide what's going on. Yeah, it's just an adorable inversion of that usual trope because she keeps coming out in these giant floor-length gowns and huge puffy sweaters and they're all just like, thumbs up, great job on that one. She never comes out with a silly cowboy hat or anything like that. Everyone goes, thumbs down. No.

I mean, the big thing here is we eventually get to a point where Hilary Faye has been so mean to the three of them that they're like, oh, I wish we could get back at her because she's so perfect and so on. I just remembered this sequence. And Roland is like, you know, she wasn't. Both of us were fucked up in different ways, but my parents spent all of their time and money on her because they figured they can fix her, but not my legs. Yeah, because he could walk until he was nine and he fell out of a tree. It's part of his meet cute with Cassandra that he tells her that. But yeah, so he's like, yeah, I have old pictures of her where she's still...

a big old piggy and she had braces and a bad nose. Yeah. And I was like, this is bad. Up until this point, I was like, there's a very clear, like, we might be, you know, kind of rough around the edges. Oh, we're underage smoking. We kind of shoplift or whatever, but we're still decent people. And then here are the hypocrite assholes. But the second it goes, oh, I know. Let's take pictures of Hillary Faye from when she was overweight and shame her for it and be like, ha, you're a fat pig and Jesus hates you. And I'm like, you fucked up. Now I don't like anyone.

Now no one is the hero anymore. Well, part of it is only Roland did that. So it is Roland. And you can tell that he probably has a lot more deep-seated anger at his sister than everyone else does because he's got to live with her. So it's definitely a misstep for him. It's not a good look for Roland that he did that. But on a certain level, I understand why he's the one who did. Like Cassandra, who is theoretically the worst person in school. I assume Cassandra was in on that. I think she laughed about it, but he's the one who was like, and I planned a surprise for her. So I don't know. Maybe Cassandra got in on it. Maybe she didn't. But it makes a lot of sense to me that Roland would do it just because he has much more conflict with her. Yeah, we have a lot of background of just...

You can tell that he's like, I hate that I basically live with a sister who constantly resents being the person who takes care of me and rubbing that in my face all the time. The passive aggression that we get from her to him in this movie is relentless, where she's constantly being like, you're lucky I'm here to push you around. And there's a part where she's lightly mad at him because he started dating Cassandra. So she just pushes him off a curb. Yeah, it's like, well, you can have him now. You take care of him. Yeah. So you can tell that there's a lot of deep seed. I mean, there's no justification for what he did. Body shaming or anything. This level of bullying is horrific and he shouldn't have done it. But it's understandable why it happened. It just shouldn't have happened. Yes.

But this is the point where Hilary Faye basically goes over the edge and is like, I hate these people and I want to ruin them. And for some reason, she assumes that it is Mary and Cassandra that has done this and does not try to point any blame at Roland. Roland ends up when she, because she goes and gets a bunch of spray paint and graffitis the school with like, God equals dog. It's very silly. Yeah. Oh, praying is for idiots. And just a whole bunch of stuff all over the place. But never points anything at Roland, which is weird because the only person who would know about those pictures and where to get them.

is Roland, and yet she never focuses any anger or anything towards him? My best guess is that she thinks he's completely worthless without his two accomplices, and also the backlash from getting her brother expelled from the school would not be worth the hassle. Getting these other two strangers where their parents have to deal with it is fine, but that problem would follow her home. That's true. That's my guess. But yeah, she does all this, and then of course somehow manages to plant the spray paint cans in their locker, which I was like...

How the fuck did you get in there? I assume because there's a balcony right over their lockers that she's standing in when they both get discovered, so she could just watch for them from over there and figure out their combinations. Ah, yes. The ability to watch from a balcony and figure out what someone's combination is. If you pray hard enough, John, miracles are possible. Faith of a mustard seed, my man. Faith of a mustard seed. See, I told you we'd get in trouble. So, yes. They find... Not only do they find both of those cans in there, but Mary had an ultrasound picture in her locker. That was one of the more interesting... This is...

The big downfall, Pastor Skip is supposed to be a misguided but ultimately good character. Yes. And the problem I have with Pastor Skip, and it happens here and it happens at the climax, is he does not know how to take this shit the fuck to his office. No. He's just like, oh my god, is this a picture of your belly with a baby in it? I'm saying this very loudly. Hello, student body. Mary, I'm addressing you personally, but I'm shouting to the back of the audience for some reason. And this happens a lot with him, where he's like, let's just resolve this here. The administrator who finds the ultrasound. Yes, there's the one teacher who, when she is looking through, because Skip is over at Cassandra's and this other teacher is at Mary's, to look through their lockers.

When she finds it, she picks it up, and when Pastor Skip is like, is there anything else? And she's just like, no. I'm going to cover for this girl, because you can tell she's like, I know what's going to happen if this gets out. Plus, it's fucking medical privacy shit. You shouldn't be sharing that around. Oh, please. Christians don't care about HIPAA. I know. That's right. Fuck you. Let's get in on it. It wasn't me. No, that's not true, John. Christians, like a lot of people in the United States, do care about HIPAA, provided they spell it wrong and think it means they don't have to get vaccines.

It's like they think it's the feminine version of hippo. That's how you spell it wrong, and then say it doesn't mean vaccines, you don't have to have them. Anyway, yeah, so the ultrasound slips out of her arms, and he picks it up and has this dumb thing where he's like, Mary, is this yours? I don't know how to resolve things in private. I'm the worst school administrator there's ever been. And that's when he switches to unforgivable. And he fucks up with that, but then they go to his office, and her mom shows up, and then he takes her mom, who he has been having an affair with, and they go into a closet, and he's like, this is clearly, she's pregnant as a punishment because of what we're doing. And the mom's like,

What are you talking about? Logistically, that doesn't even make sense. She's like four months pregnant. We've only been doing our thing for a month. What are you talking about? And he's just like, no, the more we focused on us, the less we've been able to focus on our children and what's right and God's vision. And for some reason right now, I've gotten way more Christian than I have been like.

the second half of this movie, Pastor Skip gets way more dogmatic. In the beginning of this, he's like, hey, it seems like Mary's having a hard time. Hilary Faye, can you talk to her, try and get her to see what's going on? And he seems like he actually cares, like he wants what's best, but as soon as it gets to the second half, he's just like, well, you know, when we turn from God's light. Well, his whole deal is that he wants to appear perfect. Just like Hilary Faye, he has the problem of wanting to appear perfect, which means...

He doesn't want to reveal the fact that his marriage is in shambles, so he just lies about that entirely. He has deep-seated conflicting problems with having an affair with this other woman, so he's keeping that a secret. And when it turns out that this woman he's having an affair with has an unwed pregnant daughter, he's like, well, we've got to hide that as well. That is another thing that has to go under the rug immediately. And he makes it an ultimatum. Put her in the mercy house or I will not date you anymore. Yeah. Which, you know, again, all right, no one's good here. Everyone's a piece of shit. Yeah. And they try to give these people redemption arcs, but Jesus Christ, the climax of this is just a case study and shit that never would happen. But anyway.

The mom is like, I want to think about it. I don't just want to put her in Mercy House. But by the time Mary comes to talk to her again, she's like, look, it's best for you if you're at Mercy House. The mom has also made the internal decision that I will send her this girl away so I can keep having my happiness. Yeah. Because she's like, this is too difficult to deal with. Yes. And I don't want to. And if I don't, I can justify this is for the best. Yeah. So Mary just immediately runs away. She just sneaks out her window and runs off into the night because she doesn't want to go to fucking Mercy House. And then she and her mom have had a kind of Gilmore Girls thing where they snuggle on the couch and watch Christian Jeopardy.

And it's been a running thing for them. But her mother is, like I mentioned earlier, a bag of hammers and gets every answer wrong constantly. Like, oh, which famous biblical father offered up his sons in sacrifice to God? And she's like, Moses. You're like, man, there are like three good answers you could have gone with and not that one. Even I, an avowed Bible reader when I was nine, but never since. No, that's fucking Abraham. I know that. But in the end of the movie, when she's gone out to try and hang out with Cass and Roland, her mom is lying in bed watching Christian Jeopardy and getting all the answers right because her daughter gets them all right.

And that's when she's like, oh shit, I don't want to send my daughter away. I love my daughter. I want her to stay in my life. This is ridiculous. Well, yeah, because all of the questions, of course, are like, yeah, you know, should you send your daughter to a camp? Well, it's like, oh, how quickly does a baby bond with their mother? In what period of time? It's like the first three minutes. Yeah. And so she starts thinking about, oh fuck, I do. I love my daughter. I don't want to send her away. I want to do what's best for her and not just what's best for me. Yeah. And this all takes place like the day before prom, by the way. Yeah. And then the night of prom is when she runs away. So the night of prom.

You know, Roland and Cassandra had a bit of a falling out, which, again, is the most realistic of the falling outs where Cassandra's like, I just got kicked out of school three days before the end of my senior year. And I've been kicked out of every other school in town. Like, this is fucked for me. I am absolutely screwed. And she's like, I just need some time to myself. Yeah. And drives off and leaves Roland alone, who ends up, like, sleeping on the lawn of the school for the night. He's also had a major falling out with Hilary Faye, so no one is going to give him a ride home. Yes. But the thing is, when he eventually finds Cassandra later and they talk, he's like, here's the thing. I...

depended on Hillary Faye for so long, and I've been so worried that if I ended up with another girl, I would just be with her because I needed her, not because I wanted to be with her. And, you know, it gets to be this thing where you think he's going to be like, you know, I don't want to be with you because I'm just with you because I need you. He's like, no, I do want to be with you. It's, you and I are good together. This whole thing that happened is understandable. We have an actual decent relationship. We are the only human beings in this. Founded on bullying, but still an actual human relationship. And she's like, oh, I do want you too. And then they end up together. And he's like...

When Mary shows up, he's like, finally, let's get to this. I have been stealing Mary's credit card records so that she would not notice that I have been stealing her credit card. And she bought cans of spray paint the day before the 3 a.m. before they found all of this graffiti. So the two of us are already in fancy prom outfits. They're both wearing suits because it's 2004, so they're very progressive. They're both wearing suits. And they're like, we're going to go to prom together. She's like, we can't crash the prom. And also, I've dressed to run away from home. And Cassandra's like, I bought you a pretty red dress. And I have another surprise from you. Follow me into this alley. And they go to the alley and out comes a limo with Patrick in it. And he's just like.

Hey, I'm perfect. I'm the perfect man. And she's like, but I'm, and kind of gesticulates in her stomach and he goes, stop. I don't care. And I was like, that's not the right answer. I don't care about your baby. You're like, no, maybe care a little. You should probably care somewhat. But I don't care, of course, is the coolest thing anyone could possibly say in the early 2000s. So they get, she gets changed, they go to prom, and they just sort of are allowed in somehow. Like, no one has taken tickets at the door, apparently. Whoever it is is just some high school kid. That's how that goes at prom. Oh, it's always a teacher. Not in my school. It was always some kid who worked for the ASB. Some volunteers who took that. But yeah, the...

They get in and they just start having a good time. They just start dancing and laughing and having a good time. Earlier, Cassandra, in an attempt to not get suspended, had been forced to help Hillary work on the prom decorating committee, which led to one of my favorite bits where she's up on a ladder putting up a poster and they're like, you would better be wearing underwear this time. But so we know that Hillary is super excited about prom. That's why that scene even happened. So you can see that Hillary's...

crowning moment is prom, that she managed to land some forgettable Christian rock band called, like, God Flight or something to be the house music. I gotta assume God Flight is fake, because imagine trying to get a real Christian rock band to be in this. Oh, yes. Like, hey, jars of clay, what do you got? You guys want to be in our movie that will call you shitty hypocrites? Oh, yeah. No, there were actual, like, several bands, venues, and certain other things that were going to be tied to this. We're like, no, you're not allowed to use our shit. I think there is a band that actually does all of God Flight's music, and it's just...

It was some other 80s band that I can't remember right now. It's fine. It doesn't matter. The Replacements. A perfect pick. There you go. Because they replaced the music of the film. Indeed. But yeah, they're up there being God Flight, which she's very proud of. She's trying to have her epiphany and perfect crowning moment, having rid the school of all of the parasites that were making her not anything less than pious and perfect in Jesus' eyes. And then she sees them having fun, and she's like, oh, I have to put a stop to that shit. Oh, yeah. As soon as God Flight leaves stage, it's like, okay, we'll be back. We're taking a 10-minute break. She just gets on stage, takes the mic, and is like, hey, everyone, I'm the person who set up God Flight, so thanks.

Thanks to me. But also, of course, give yourselves a round of applause. You're the real heroes. Yeah. And also, these four, the people who ruined our school, they're here and they should be taken out. Pastor Skip, please. And what Pastor Skip should do, of course, is let's not do this on mic. Everyone, all five of you, into another room. Let's go. Everyone, in another room. Instead, he gets up on mic and he's like, is that true? Actually, Hillary, I think we should, the Christian thing. I think you two should leave because you shouldn't be here right now. You know, the two that have been expelled. And then, he tries to tell her at first that the Christian thing is to let them stay. And then she goes into the whole like, but.

but they did this and this thing. And he's like, okay, fine. You guys should leave. Cause at first he tries, he gives us a little tiny effort where he's like, we don't just kick people out of our school dances. That's a, yeah. Well, I mean the easiest thing to do without making a scene is to go, well, let's just fucking let them stay. Who cares? Yeah. They're four out of like 300 people. You won't even notice them. It's going to be fine. But no, she makes a big enough stink that he's like, all right, you guys should leave. But Roland has to go and be like, Hey, I have this credit card bill that shows that, you know, she bought.

paint at three in the morning and of course she's like yeah you've been stealing my credit card all this shows is that someone used my credit card at three in the morning and again here's another off ramp for this dumb conversation to not be on mic anymore for because pastor skip takes the credit card receipt like he's judge fucking judy and reads it he's like rolling this on mic to the whole student body rolling this doesn't specifically prove anything this just shows that someone made a charge for cans of paint i'm gonna need to see additional evidence i'm like get the fuck off the stage what are you doing why is this happening how come the other the other teachers aren't like get the fuck off the stage because you know there's only one other teacher in this entire school yeah but at that point they're like all right hillary fae swear to God, swear that you didn't do this to God right now. And she tries to fight it. She's like, I'm not going to do that. I don't have to do what you say, that kind of thing. And finally she caves and goes, fine, I swear to God, I did not buy spray paint. Well, it turns out that about 20 minutes before the prom started, she was being mean to Tia, the Heather Matarazzo character you barely remember, in her van.

And Tia, while rooting around looking for a dropped tiara or something. Yeah, she dropped her purse. Finds the actual receipt from Home Depot and knowing enough to know that at least this is very important, crams it into her bra. Yeah. And then at that point, as soon as Hilary Faye says like, yes, I swear. And now you guys need to leave. Tia gets her moment of being like, actually, that's false. And here's the receipt with your signature on it. And then the fucking Pastor Skip says that in front of everyone. It's like, well, Hilary Faye, this is your signature. And of course, I've memorized all of the student body signatures. Yes. This looks very bad, Hilary. This is your signature. Get the fuck off the stage.

And you see God flight over in the corner being like, Hey guys, we were scheduled to start the set again. No, honestly, at that point, I'm like, if I was that bad, I'd be like, and pack it up guys. We are out. You can see him in the back, put their drums away. That would have been 10 times better. You can just see a fucking PA getting an amp rolled off as he like looks nervously around. Oh shit. Oh shit. I'm not here. Not me. I'm not part of this. But yeah, once Tia calls her out, uh, now Pastor Skip is like, Oh geez.

Well, maybe you should leave. Maybe you should leave. And she's like, fine, Veronica, my extra lady who's always just been on my side the whole time, it's time for us to go. And she's like, don't touch me, you idolater or whatever the fuck she wants to call her. Because this is her chance. Veronica's a nothing character. Veronica is nothing and remains nothing. And so all she does is be like, don't touch me, which is not a big change for her. She's just reading the fucking tea leaves. Yeah, but this is Hilary Faye's breakdown where she's like, oh, I've done nothing but be a good Christian and do what everyone says I should do. And now I'm being punished for it.

And then she goes outside. She storms outside, runs away. Our good-ish characters, Roland and Cassandra, are like, we'll go talk to her. We don't want to ruin her life entirely. This isn't what this was. But as they try to get out the door, in comes Dean and his boyfriend and everybody from Mercy House. And they're like, we stole some fucking vans. We're here to go to prom. Try and stop us, crusty old Dean. Oh, wait, I'm Dean. Dean just shows up and he's like, hey, are you pregnant? That's great. I absolutely love it. I'm excited to have a baby. This is also my boyfriend. I have decided in the months that I've been away that I am fully out.

proud of who I am. I'm here at school to demand to go to my prom, and you can't stop me because I'm still a good Christian and fuck you. And I'm like, yeah, sure that happened, Dean. It's in the grand tradition of movies that contain a better movie that they didn't bother with. Like, I want to see him learning to be a badass, proud gay guy who steals cars at Mercy House. We also don't, like, he shows up with at least, like, eight other people. The only one we know is the other gay guy who is his boyfriend. I'm like...

What is the rest of their stories? And how did you steal a van? Yeah, I want to see. It's just like how you find out at the beginning of Independence Day 2, which I do not recommend you watch, that some African guerrilla warlord has been fighting an endless war against a bunch of surviving aliens. And I'm like, that is a 15 times better movie than the movie you made. Show me that. God damn it.

But yeah, so we have, of course, that moment where we have to have Dean talk to Pastor Skip and be like, oh, now Pastor Skip has become the most dogmatic person. He's like, what you do is an abomination. You need to all get back in that van and go back to Mercy House before you go to jail. And of course, Dean is like, you know, the true Christian thing to do is to love each other. And I love my boyfriend and this is my time to be here at prom. And Jesus loves me. You are not in charge of whether or not Jesus loves me. What you get from Dean here, it's very much the climax of a movie you didn't see because Dean comes out.

perfect. He comes out, he's hard-charged, he doesn't falter, there's no arguing with him, he's just flint-eyed angry at this guy. He's like, I am not budging until I go to my prom. I will die before I take a step backwards. And you're like, what the fuck happened? I want to see that. No, it's just, oh, this is...

what Brian Danley wishes he was when he was 17 or 18 years old. I'm pretty sure what we're seeing here is the climax of the movie that he was not allowed to make. It was 2004, and his pitch was like, I want to make a movie about a gay guy who accidentally gets his girlfriend pregnant, and then he goes to a house, or like a Pray the Gay Away place, and he learns to be rad. And they're like, uh, you can't make a movie about a gay guy. And they were like, also, but I'm a cheerleader, came out five years ago, so we don't need a Pray the Gay Away camp again. Yeah, so we get the director being like, fuck it, I'm putting in my crowning moment of awesome glory here. Yeah, I'm gonna have the monologue I wished I had given when I was that age. And I'm like...

Good. Sure. It's awesome. It's a great scene. I especially love the bit where he sees that Mary is pregnant and he just kind of has a dawning realization. He goes, our first time? And she's like, yeah, that's what happened. He goes, that's amazing. I'm so excited. Okay, look, also, and she goes, oh, yeah, is that your life partner? Because she's trying, but she's still Christian upbringing. And he goes, he's my prom date. Let's just say he's my prom date. Yeah, I'm not ready to commit to a life partner. We've known each other for a couple of months now. You know, you already have girlfriend, boyfriend language worked up. You could just use that. But it's a cute scene. But it takes long enough that Hillary gets the chance to put her...

lack of a plan, total chaos, goblin mode energy moment into action. And she gets into her van and she starts doing donuts in the parking lot. Well, she just drives directly at the Jesus statue because she's like, I'm so angry that I have tried to do what they've told me a good Christian should do. And it has turned out that actually doing all of these things makes me an asshole. And I'm angry. And she just heads right into the fucking Jesus statue. She thinks better of it towards the end because she turns sideways and fishtails into the Jesus statue at the end. And then his head falls off and lands on her windshield. And she has a moment where she's like, wait, is this all bullshit? She has the moment too, just like everyone else did. And then she gets pulled out of the car by Cassandra who's like, look, it's...

This isn't going to be that bad. You're going to be okay. Yeah. And then there's an ambulance pulls up behind him and she's like, oh, is that my ambulance? Of course not. It's a freaking ambulance. She was two days from her due date.

Mary. So she's going into labor. Yes. And you get that whole like, all right, well, we only got room for one person in this here ambulance. He's like, I'm a boyfriend. I'm the father. I'm his boyfriend. That's all great. I don't care what you got to decide one of you. I'm the mother and I've decided to show up now and give a fuck about my child. I really wanted Mary to be like, no, you were going to send me to Mercy House. I didn't see your personal revelation happen. That's not how movies work. For all I know, you're going to get in here and be like, all right. And now you're going to have to give your child away and also go to a camp. Yeah. I really want that moment for Mary to be like, wait, before you're the one who gets in here, disavow the Mercy House shit. Yeah. That moment.

But instead, she just gets in and is like, hey, baby, I'm here to help you. I'm going to be with you through the labor, okay? Yeah. And then we get our mega happy ending where all the characters, including Dean's boyfriend, which is the funniest thing, that you have all these, like, people who became the fastest of friends over the school year, plus Dean's boyfriend. Yeah, plus Dean, who has not been there all year, and his boyfriend. But at least he was already a close friend of Mary's beforehand. Yes. It's just amusing to be like, ah, and now everyone shows up, and also a guy who hasn't been here for a year and his boyfriend now. Yeah. The weirdest thing about the ending, because otherwise it's just a mega happy, they're in a hospital bed, who wants to hold a baby, everyone gets to be here, who was cool in the movie.

is the mom looking out the window and seeing Pastor Skip trying to come in and he's got roses and he keeps changing his mind and walking back and forth and kind of smacking himself on the head and she just has this kind of warm smile. She just kind of goes, I understand. This guy's a moron. I'm not going to bang him anymore. Whereas I was like, no, that's definitely the smile of, oh, he's willing to commit now. He has roses. He's not willing to commit. He is out there being the definition of noncommittal. Oh, I know. The thing is, I was like, 100%, he's going to come in there eventually with roses and go,

oh, I fucked up. Please take me back. I swear I'll divorce my wife. And she will take him back because we have learned only one thing about this lady and it's that she sucks and wants this dude's dick. Yes. And that's where it ends. And it starts that goddamn awful cover of God Only Knows Again. God damn it. Which meant I just started skipping to see if there was post credits. I don't know why. This movie was not the kind of thing to have post credits. I do it all the time now for everything where I'm like, all right, skip ahead. Is there anything? No. Of course not. Why would there be? What would there be? I mean, there's high school precedent. Ferris Bueller's Day Off has one.

So there you go. Saved. Definitely. Definitely a movie. It's got that very few redeeming characters problem. Yeah. Let's go ahead and get into our bests and worsts then. Jeff, what is the best thing in this movie for you? China. That line is really good. It's a good joke. It's a good gag where he just doesn't look up. He's reading. He's got headphones on. He can barely hear them. But he's been putting up with her passive aggressive bullshit for so long that he just kind of goes, China. And she gets mad and turns around again. And it's great. I like Macaulay Culkin quite a bit. Yes. I've always liked him.

I like even the weirder ones, like, what's it called? Monster something or other? The one where he's like a club kid in the New York club? Yeah, Monster's Ball. I think it's called Monster's Ball. I'm pretty sure that's his film. I'm pretty sure it was Monster's Ball. I'm pretty sure it was Monster Inc. Party Monster. It's called Party Monster. It's really good. I like him a lot. He does have this weird thing where he's such a pale dude that he always looks like he's wearing a good shade of lipstick. I don't think he is. He just has that look. He has a vibe where his lips are like, just lipstick shade. Yeah, I just want to mack on him. I just want to mack Ollie Culkin. Uh-huh. Oh, great. I would say my favorite thing in this is, I mean, related to that, it's just...

Roland and Cassandra's actual relationship is the best one in here as far as being a... natural and, like, feels normal relationship? Because, I mean, honestly, the one between Pastor Skip and Mary's mom feels normal. That obviously is the kind of thing that happens. It's unhealthy, but it is normal. Yeah, but the relationship between Cassandra and Roland not only feels natural like this would happen, but it gets fleshed out. They have a, not just a, uh, we have a perfect relationship because we have to be in a perfect relationship. They have ups and downs. Yeah, the Mary Patrick one is the obvious, uh, you know, the horse shit relationship. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Full Twilight. It's just bullshit. It doesn't add up to much. If I can add on to how much I like the Roland-Cassandra relationship, there is a point where...

She says, while they're at a coffee shop date, what does it feel like to be dating a stripper? Is that why you want to meet me here? Because you want to be seen with a stripper? And later she goes, I'm not actually a stripper. She's letting the walls down. She's been portraying this ultra mega slut skank bitch lady in an attempt to keep away all these Christians, but it's not true. It's not real. And I liked it. The little drop away is as far as it goes. I was worried the movie would take it further and have her be like, I've never even kissed a boy before. I don't know what sex is. That kind of thing. All of this has been a front. And no, it's just that. Just that she isn't a stripper. I'm very clearly not a stripper. I am 17 years old. Yeah. So yeah, that I did appreciate. It was a nice little moment.

Worst part of this movie? It's hard to say. I mean, obviously it's going to be one of the various acts of dumb bullying, but I'm going to go with, Pastor Skip is such a bullshit student administrator that he keeps doing things on microphone that need to be done in private. Yeah. That is, I mean, you can have the awful bullying of Hilary Faye or the awful bullying of Hilary Faye, but I'm going to go with the adult failures here. Great. And that's my biggest one, is Pastor Skip not knowing what he needs to take the fuck into a room. Okay. What about you? I got to say, probably my least favorite thing is...

I understand that this is obviously coming from someone who has a lot of problems with the Christian community and that I think it's too heavy handed, especially the beginning, like we mentioned, but it's just so all Christians are fake and hypocrites and everyone's using it just for their own benefit. And no one believes. And the few people who are good, uh, don't get anything fleshed out. And they're just like, Oh, I'm perfect because I need to be for the plot. Yeah.

My problem with that, I would be there with you for the most part, except if I hadn't been in like a Twitter conversation like two days ago between a bunch of, or watching one, I didn't participate, of a bunch of hardcore evangelicals where one of them got Illimat as a present and they were asking their friends whether or not they should burn it because it looks like it has tarot cards in it. And all the answers were like, yes, get that demon or devilry out of your home immediately. And people being like, it's based on an Irish folk legend and no part of it has anything to do with religion whatsoever. Well, who's God do you believe in, idolater? You know, that kind of shit where it's like, that's just part of the world now that the Orthodox has gotten way more Orthodox. Well, yes. And that is, it's the problem, I think, that...

stems from me having a religious upbringing where I'm like, I never saw any of that. None of that was in my Christianity. None of the stuff in my church. You didn't have people who were like, oh, fuck you. I'm super pious. Everyone's just like, hey, who wants a hot dish? You know, I don't know for shit because I'm not a religious person. I never really was. But I feel comfortable in saying I would go to a thousand Lutheran church meetings before I'd go to one evangelical one. Oh, of course. Yeah. Lutherans always see, like, even the most devout Lutheran is still like, hey, you want some casserole? Hey, who wants a baked good? And you're like, oh, great. Yeah.

You know, at worst, they're like, I'm a little scared of change. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah. Like, OK. But yeah, I think just the heavy handedness of it where it gets to the point where you're like, I almost backlash to be against what it's saying. I'm like, fuck you. Not all of them are like this. Don't be like that. So everyone in the small town was. Yeah. And that's the lesson. Everyone in this small town in Maryland sucks ass. That's the lesson. Don't go to Maryland. You live in Baltimore. You're a piece of shit. Fuck you, Baltimore. You heard it here first. John hates Baltimore.

Add it to the list. Put it in the lore, Bible. All right. So we are going to rate the movie. God, we've been going on for a while. I did not realize we had been talking so long. You should have taken my opportunity to skip to the ending way earlier. Yeah, well, probably. Let's give it the rating. All right. We're each going to give it a rating from zero to five to get a full rating out of 10. Jeff. Two and a half. I had a couple of laughs, and it's not terrible. That said, I don't think I'm ever going to watch it again. No. I have seen bits and pieces of this before. I am filled with Christ's love. I mean, obviously that, yes. Yes. But other bits and pieces of this as well. I think I would give it a two. Okay. It just...

I think it probably rubs you a little more. It makes me a little more uncomfortable watching it. So I definitely see my point five lower than yours. But again, it isn't bad. It's a well-made movie. There are some funny points in it. It's definitely very rough, though, in certain other ways. I would say one of the weirdest moments for me is the part where Cassandra shows up to demonstrate how much she loves her new boyfriend by showing that she has had her car converted to be wheelchair operable. Like he can drive it now. Yes. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, how did you do that secretly? And how much money did you spend? That is fucking expensive. But hey.

Hey, we know it's a it's a rich people private school and her dad has been shopping her to every school in the city. So they got they got to scratch. They got it. All right. Four and a half out of 10. Not a great movie. Yeah, there you go. That's it. No moral. No moral. Christianity. OK, maybe, but also bad. Are we rating Christianity on a scale? Hey, Jeff, on a scale of one to five, I want you to rate Christianity for me. Jeez. You know, in the in the word, the to paraphrase the great drill.

I'm not owned. I'm not owned. Christianity is definitely very bad, but it also helps people get to work on time. So who can really say one way or the other? All right. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been another episode of Movie Mastery. We will, of course, be back in two weeks with more Movie Mastery content for you. And if you like the show, if you want to support us, you want to help us keep doing what we're doing and get yourself a little bonus content for your listening pleasure as well, you can head on over to patreon.com slash system mastery. Support us at any level. We'll help out the show and every single level that you select.

unlocks new bonus content and ad-free versions of our main content. That's right. You may have, if you aren't listening to this through the Patreon feed, notice that there are some ads in here. Maybe. I don't know if they've started yet. What am I going to do? Listen to our recent shows? I mean, I've put the ads in there, so they should be. But if you want ad-free, you can always go over and support on Patreon to get the feed that way. But you also get all of our bonus content for our various shows.

all the way up to if you go to $10 a month, it unlocks everything we do. We're doing our TV mastery as well. We're probably going to be wrapping up on Auto Man pretty soon here. And we've also got... Five episodes left at least. Well, I might wrap it up a little sooner than that. After today's episode, I might wrap it up a little sooner. This episode had more promise than most of them, but yeah, I wasted it. Yeah, so...

If you want to find out why I watched an episode of Auto Man and decided, fuck it, let's end this, go ahead and join us at the $10 level at patreon.com slash System Mastery. And that also gives you our monthly afterthought. It gives you access to a bunch of rooms in our Discord. You can find the link to our Discord over on Twitter at System Mastery there. And you can find me at Gurgle Spasm if you want to, I don't know, yell at me for some reason. Yeah, if you want to ride Twitter to the bitter end, then why not hold John's hand as the ship goes down?

refuse to let me get on a door with you as it goes down. I'm sorry. This is more of a one-person door. It's clearly a huge door. I hate that argument so much. The weight would make it sink. He has to die there because he's dead. That's why it has to happen. Yeah, great. I'm sure he could have fit on the door, but the movie's not about how the two of them survive. See, whereas I'm like, oh, if you put another person on the door, the added weight would actually make it sink down, and then they would both die. It's only, while large enough to fit two people, the buoyancy of it is only enough to hold one. Yeah. And that's fine. I'm willing to accept that as well. I don't care. I'm just like, it's a movie. Hot Titanic takes.

That's what you get from us. Now let's review the Titanic sequel that is a cartoon at some point because it is eye-opening. I don't believe it exists and I will never believe anything you say to me. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back in another couple weeks. You all have a good one. This is big. The Sephora Savings Event is back. And now for November 9th, everything's on sale. Everything you really want. Like One Size, Patrick Ta, Karastas, Kayali, Laneige, and yeah, you're going to need a bigger bag. Shop at Sephora. Limitations apply. Must be a beauty insider. See terms at sephora.ca for complete details.