It is interesting to look at how cinematic tastes change.  When I was in my late teens and early twenties, because I was an idiot, I would go to the theater whenever anything with Jason Biggs or Jack Black opened, mainly because they were who my friends wanted to see.  This is a roundabout way of saying that I actually spent money to see Saving Silverman (2001) when it came out.  Remarkably, the film has stuck with me because it features a character, Sandy Perkus (Amanda Detmer), discerning religious life.  This aspect alone makes it of some interest to a Catholic, even if the majority of it is silly and useless.  The fact that there is the religious angle also makes me at least somewhat interested in telling you about it.

What we are told at the beginning of Saving Silverman is how Wayne LeFessier (Steve Zahn), J.D. McNugent (Jack Black), and Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs) have been friends since elementary school.  Wayne is the leader, J.D. is the self-described idiot, and Darren is the sensitive type.  Despite their shortcomings, in high school they each had a connection to the football team, with Wayne being the third string quarterback.  From that point on, they maintained a friendship with the psychotic coach, Coach Norton (R. Lee Ermey).  However, the sport is not the only permanent bond between the three.  Ever since Wayne had been at a Neil Diamond (as himself) concert while in the womb (and Catholic kudos for acknowledging that we are people while in such a state), the young man has been drawn to the mega star’s music.  Along with Darren and J.D., Wayne forms a Neil Diamond tribute band and they give concerts when not working their day jobs, complete with costumes.  After one of their gigs, the trio are in a bar when Judith Fessbeggler (Amanda Peet) sits down near them.  The encounter comes as Darren is complaining about his loneliness, so Wayne initiates with the newcomer hoping to enkindle something for his friend.  Judith flatly refuses, but Wayne claims she is interested.  Darren finds out the hard way that she does not want company.  However, when another person tries to hit on her, she tells the next person that Darren is her boyfriend.  And this is how their relationship starts.  Relationship is probably the wrong word.  She controls him, emotionally and physically.  The emotional part, unfortunately, involves withholding physical intimacy.  Physically speaking, after some disastrous attempts at trying to get her to like J.D. and Wayne, she forbids Darren from seeing his oldest and closest friends.  Therefore, Darren must sneak around in order to spend time with them, and J.D. and Wayne begin to come to the conclusion that she is no good for their best friend.  At first, J.D. and Wayne try to reason with Darren, emphasizing her controlling grip.  When that fails, the two jilted companions attempt to bribe Judith, with Wayne going so far as offering his childhood home if she agrees to break up with Darren.  Instead, she admits to liking the power she has over her boyfriend, which becomes an engagement in the next scene.  Upon hearing that Judith had proposed to Darren, Wayne vows to take drastic measures to stop the wedding.  The idea he comes up with is kidnapping, and J.D. and Wayne take Judith and chain her up in their basement.  Meanwhile, Wayne meets with a distraught Darren, who had found a note that he believes to be from Judith saying that she is leaving him.  As they are discussing the matter, who should walk into the same diner but Sandy.  When they had been in high school, she had been the one for Darren.  However, they had been prevented from being together when she moves away with her circus family.  Yeah.  Despite Sandy’s return, it is clear that Darren is still hung up on Judith.  Besides, in subsequent conversations between Sandy and Wayne, we learn that Sandy is a week from taking her final vows to become a nun.  As such, Wayne concludes that he needs to take even more drastic measures.  Thus, he has J.D. go to the local cemetery, dig up a body, put it in Judith’s car, and push it off a cliff.  I guess forensics are not a thing in this film because the authorities, and the news, conclude that it is Judith who dies in the wreck.  This paves the way for Darren and Sandy to begin to get closer, but they still have to deal with Judith, who already has already made one escape attempt.  The friends turn to Coach Norton, who is in jail for accidentally murdering a referee, and his advice is to kill her.  Naturally, they cannot do so.  Instead, she convinces J.D. that he is a homosexual, and makes Wayne fall in love with her.  Of course, it is a ruse to get Wayne to help her out of her shackles, which happens on the day Coach Norton shows up at their place freshly out of jail.  Meanwhile, after some hiccups, Darren and Sandy are about to move in together and get serious.  As they are doing so, a newly freed Judith appears at the house to a startled Darren and Sandy.  J.D. and Wayne arrive shortly thereafter, and Darren is understandably not happy with them.  The police get there, too, and J.D. and Wayne are arrested.  The phone call they make is to Coach Norton, who breaks them out.  Because the wedding between Darren and Judith is back on, the two friends are under a time crunch to stop it.  Their plan, then, is to collect Sandy, who is in the process of taking her final vows, and Neil Diamond (as himself).  They all get to the ceremony right before the “I do’s.”  Darren goes to Sandy, while Judith and Wayne have a brief, tooth displacing fist fight before they start making out.  The final scene sees the two couples married, as well as J.D. and Coach Norton, and they play on stage with Diamond.

Having read this synopsis of Saving Silverman, I would not be surprised if, like me, you are confused as to how they talked Neil Diamond into being in this movie.  Then again, they probably pitched it as a film about people who are fans of his, and gave him whatever compensation he demanded.  If you have read enough of my reviews, you will know that this Catholic reviewer demands that films do a better job of depicting the Faith.  While this one is by no means accurate, I will go so far as to say that it is better than most, which is a strange thing to say given its content.  After all, nuns do not lift weights all day long.  Further, whoever decided on Sandy’s novice costume had clearly been shopping at Spirit Halloween.  Finally, if a woman is a week away from becoming a nun, she is not likely to be public in regular clothes and going on dates.  While this all sounds bad, what I appreciate about it is the honest discernment that takes place.  It should come as no shock that with Sandy being allowed to do all these things, she starts to question her calling.  This happens often during the years leading to taking the final vows, and I can imagine many a Mother Superior (Lillian Carlson) like in the movie ruefully commenting on how they lost another one when Sandy departs with J.D. and Wayne towards the end has all been previously said.  What is better, though, is when Sandy voices her concerns and she admits that they are sexual in nature.  There is the stereotype that such notions cannot be a part of the lives of female and male religious because they are about to commit to celibacy.  While that is true, that does not mean that they stop being human.  During their formation, they talk about these feelings rather than running from them.  This is important because God can use those inclinations to push us towards the vocation He would like to see us fill.  As such, though I would have preferred to have seen Sandy remain a nun, I can at least say that she did not make a snap decision.

Despite my appreciation for what we see Sandy go through in Saving Silverman, the better decision is not to watch it.  Because it is from that crude era of Hollywood comedies, there is enough objectionable material in it that it is best to be avoided.  There are worse films, but there is little value here.