Save Me

This story touches on a very sensitive subject that some film makers in the past have tried to put a story to.(and usually failed) A shout out to the cast and director for having the courage to portray such a story without villianizing or stereotyping either side of the spectrum. It really shows the need to open communication lines for two drastically different people to find some common ground and be able to love each other as human beings. Judith Light was phenomenal in her role as Gayle, a deeply religious woman who, with her husband, runs a church and privately funded house to help men fix their "sexual broken-ness", driven by her own inner termoil and personal experience. Layered with great performances by Chad Hall and Robert Gant contributes to a very eye-opening and touching film.

I love gay films, and this is one of the better ones I have seen. I grew up in the Midwest, and I know only too well the struggle to reconcile who you are with the religion you grew up with. It's easy for some to write off religion or to say that it is outdated, or shouldn't matter; the truth is that for many people faith and God are important in their lives. And this movie addresses that struggle. Some won't like the movie because there's not a clear-cut good and bad, and it is clear that although sometimes people acting "for the Lord" can be misguided, there is also a lot of good that can be done. The actors are amazing. I actually was not familiar with any of them before watching this film, but I was very very impressed. Watch it! It's beautiful and truthful all at once.

"when i have doubts i know it's just god testing my faith"

Gayle said that in the middle of the movie. I found this totally unbelievable.

I may not be Christian but i absolutely don't understand that kind of thinking if you have doubts about your life, you think about why you're having them doubts don't come out of nowhere,and you rethink your purposes, why you follow the guideline you're following, what made you think like this in the first place and how you're feeling about it now. Doing something just because you've always done so is just stupid it prevents you from becoming someone better and really learn who you are. In this case Gayle just help them with her philosophy when then are in need of something like that and I feel they simply never question it again, it helped them so it has to be the only perfect way for everyone.

am i the only one here?

There is a whole list of things I liked about this movie. Though it has some flaws, they are far outshone by the good.

The setting of the movie and the approach to the characters is brilliant. Most movies that show non-urban, non-coastal US cities fall into a trap of playing the setting and the characters for laughs, or at least exaggerating the local color for effect (witness Coen Brothers movies, for example). This movie didn't fall into the self-conscious exaggeration, which inevitably keeps the audience at a distance. Instead, it shows most things in a very human level--you're not looking down on, or sideways at, or with an outsider's view of the people or situation. This is the water you're swimming in. You're there to witness what is going on without the self-conscious, ironic and "precious" aspects that many directors are afraid to leave behind. This view of the rural West feels very genuine (and I know because I've lived there before).

The acting by Judith Light and Stephen Lang is phenomenal and that by Chad Allen and Robert Gant is very good. The large cast of supporting actors is largely very good, too. It becomes even more amazing that they pulled this off when the movie makers undoubtedly were working on a shoe-string budget. The performances are better than many big budget movies. The script allows for complex characters and the acting is nuanced.

The production values are similarly good for the small budget: beautiful filming, a good musical score and songs that worked just right for the tone.

There is a sense of space and stillness that allows things to breathe and it's a little bit "Zen" once the movie gets going. I didn't find the first few scenes of the movie fit in particularly well with the rest of the tone, but it was a minor annoyance. Some people may be expecting more of an emotional roller-coaster. The script and the direction were taken in a different direction than "hero-against-conspiring-world." You're meant to identify with different aspects of many characters and not only see things from a single perspective. It's harder to maintain a singular emotional intensity based on this focus. I found it quite effective for what it set out to accomplish (not what some reviewers wished it had accomplished instead).

A minor quibble is that some of the quiet lines were hard to hear and understand (though it could've been bad audio compression artifacts since I watched it on Netflix instant watch so it was not full DVD quality).

You really should see this movie if you care about any of the themes it addresses or you love to watch good acting.

Interesting that this 2007 film is only now getting the recognition it deserves (a 2009 GLAAD nomination for Outstanding Film / Limited Release -- see Message Boards). Having never even heard of it when it was released, I just now finished watching it, and was deeply moved by its even-handedness and lack of melodrama. Instead of being a potboiler, Save Me (which indeed could have used some rescuing from the back burner of publicity) gently simmers its characters in a subtle stew of reason and emotion. One might expect the climax of such a film to concern sexuality, but instead it reaches out to encompass the gestalt of human relationship, of being and belonging.

As someone who watches almost no TV, I didn't recognize any of the actors, so I was pleased to discover them in this film. Gant and Allen were fine, Lang was excellent, and Judith Light was an absolute phenomenon: an astonishing performance of understated depth and nuance. She deserved an Oscar nod. The writing was thoughtful and well-balanced between character interaction and personal introspection (through individual disclosures to an off-screen presence revealed at the end of the film). Production values were superb, given what I assume was a small budget.

Along with exploring the psycho-dynamics of the individuals and their subsequently conflicted relationships, the film places the viewer at a level of detachment which promotes compassion for all of the principals - as well as a sense of forgiveness that is Christian in the very best sense of that word.