Save Yourselves!
“Save Yourselves!” is not, strictly speaking, a film about religion. The title is meant to be taken (mostly) literally, and it’d be a stretch to suggest the movie contains any hint of overt spirituality in the traditional sense. It’s really what the trailer suggests it is: a hilarious tale about two Brooklyn hipster millennials desperately trying to find meaning in a world they feel has denied it to them — and being attacked by fluffy, unexpectedly deadly aliens instead.
But it’s precisely because “Save Yourselves!” largely avoids the topic of traditional faith that it doubles as an incisive window into the world of millennials, who often identify as “religiously unaffiliated” — a broad and rapidly expanding subset of Americans. The entire film is built on the existential angst of its two seemingly prototypically modern protagonists, a couple who find themselves beset by triune concerns about social media overload, languishing professional aspirations and a yearning to be, well, better.
If they claim fully formed religious worldviews that could help them address such issues, they don’t get much mention. Instead, their solution is to toss their phones aside (literally) and pilgrimage to a remote cabin in upstate New York, where they plan to cook, chop wood and quasi-meditate their way into something resembling enlightenment. Things don’t go entirely as planned (e.g., aliens invade!), but their journey of meaning-making is one that will likely feel familiar to a growing number of younger Americans eager to unearth a deeper connection — to themselves, to others and to something greater — outside the walls of institutional religion. (Jack Jenkins)
