Saved vs. Juno: Battle for Pregnancy Supremacy

I try not to review films from the queue that I've already seen, but apparently I give too many negative reviews. So I decided to review Saved, a film I love.

Juno got buzz like no pregnancy film has in a long, long time. And now, young girls getting knocked up has become a slight trend in film and TV, with Secret Life of An American Teenager, The Pregnancy Pact, 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, Knocked Up. And then even Away We Go, even though they aren't too young, still it, like The Office and Waitress deal with young adults coping with a first time pregnancy. It's also a case of either life imitating art or the other way around; with the high school girl pregnancy pact that happened a few years ago, and teen celebrity Jamie Lynn Spears going the family way.

But Juno was the height of the pop culture pregnancy boom. It was a critical and commercial success, earning Oscar noms and a screenplay win, which is quite a surprise, considering the story has been told before, and actually the premise is quite simple. But just like some of 2009's Best Picture noms, like Precious, The Blind Side, or even An Education, it very easily could have been an after school special or straight to video. But even more realistically, it seemed destined to just be an indie darling that people love, but gets avoided come awards season. That's exactly what happened to Saved!.

Saved and Juno follow very similar premises; a high school girl gets pregnant and has to deal with the social realities of the "problem." Except the differences lie in what those social realities actually are. Juno very well could be the secular Saved. In Saved, Mary is a good, Christian girl trying to do what's right and follow her faith. Her boyfriend reveals that he might be gay, and she has a misguided vision of Jesus telling her to help him. The only way she can figure to help is by keeping him on the right side, and they have sex. (But still trying to have some decency, she keeps her bra on during it.) Her boyfriend gets sent to Mercy House, a Christian insitution designed to "heal" teens of what ails them, and Mary gets pregnant. The film follows Mary through the school year, dealing with her faith while hiding her pregnancy from her peers, including A-type personality Christian girl, Hillary Faye.
In Juno, Juno gets knocked up by her pseudo-boyfriend Bleeker, played by short shorts wearing Michael Cera. Here, she comes out quick, telling her parents and not hiding anything. She decides to give the baby to a barren couple wanting a child. Even though the plot of Juno revolves around the pregnant teen, it's as if the film is about something else, though. It's just about a teenage girl with average problems, struggling to build and maintain relationships. As though, the pregnancy wasn't that unique, she's just an average American teenager with a typical problem. And like all the TV shows that came out afterward show, it doesn't seem like it's that unique of a problem. And since it isn't that unique of a problem, the film should just be an example of art imitating life. And honestly, that's where it ends. Juno isn't that deep of a film. It's good. The characters are well written, the story is interesting, there's a lot to relate to. But by the end, how much is the film asking?
And that's why Saved is a better film. It's a satire, and feels slightly on the nose at times, with the Modern-Day Christian sayings that the kids say, and the situations you could see a mile away. But beneath that, there is great comedy that asks real questions, and not just for the Christian community. At times, it felt like the film was making fun of the new American Christian movement, but mostly you get the feeling that they're laughing at themselves, and seeing their own pitfalls. And by extension, this film is really about American society, and our coping with our collective faith and living in the real world.
It's rightly set among teens growing up with the faith of their fathers, and their fathers' trying to interpret the world for them. It's the character of Patrick, the Christian Dean's son, that we can most admire, because he's the one that is internally asking the questions and facing the world himself without any outside dilemma, like Mary. Whether you're religious or not, Saved is a great cultural film that actually takes a peak inside what's going on with America today. And even though it revolves around the same topic that all these other films, Saved actually asks real questions, even if it doesn't give all the answers.