Boy Erased

Joel Edgerton is an actor and filmmaker who I have become a big fan of over the years, so when I heard he was going adapt Garrard Conley's memoir Boy Erased, I was immediately intrigued, based on the talent displayed in his directorial debut, The Gift. When I finally saw it, I was blown away by what I had just seen. 

Jared Eamons (played by Luke Hedges) is a bright young man trying to figure out his place in the world. He has a girlfriend and works with his Dad at the local Ford Dealership his Dad owns. He thinks he may be gay, but struggles with admitting it to himself, let alone to others. When he's outed by a classmate, Henry (played by Joe Alwyn), at college, he begrudgingly admits to his parents, Baptist Pastor father Marshall (played by Russell Crowe) and dutiful mother Nancy (played by Nicole Kidman) that he is gay. Dad consults two of the senior pastors at their family's church and a decision is made to send Jared to a place to help him. The place is a Gay Conversion "therapy" institution called Love in Action, run by a man named Victor Sykes (played by Joel Edgerton). The set up is that Jared will spend every day there before retiring to a local hotel with his Mom each night for two weeks. Each day, Jared and the other young adults there are subjected to so-called "therapies" such as figuring out how their family sins led to their homosexuality, with a chart not unlike a family tree they are supposed to fill out with all the sin various family members have been guilty of as this somehow led them to develop their homosexuality. Other activities include such physical activities designed to help the boys butch up like learning to stand with a more masculine pose or how to hit a baseball. Things take a darker turn when one kid isn't progressing far enough, so the leaders stage a mock funeral to try and literally scare him straight, including the kid's family members hitting him with a bible to try and exorcise the gay demons from him. Because to people that run these clinics, that's all they see. To them, homosexuality means you will get AIDs, you will die, it's all a huge sinful, abusive, toxic death sentence. Jared begins to see the "therapy" for what it is and finds himself at a crossroads, trying to decide what to do next as he knows that walking away would likely mean walking away from his family, especially his father. 

Edgerton, who wrote the screenplay in addition to directing, handles the material with care. It would be so easy for the film to slip into melodrama or even satire, given how ludicrous much of gay conversion "therapy" is, but is always sure to play the reality of the situation. Rather than go for fire and brimstone, frothing at the mouth, tyrannical overacting, each character in the film, even Jared's father or Victor Sykes, thinks they are helping Jarrod even when what they are actually doing is horrific psychological and spiritual abuse. It's the perfect touch for this film and grounds the film, making everything feel that much more real and immediate. Throughout the film, Edgerton keeps things subtle and real, whether from the Love in Action center, Jared's college campus or his life at home feel intimately relatable. This only strengthened the empathy I felt towards Jared's character and the turmoil he went through throughout the film. Given the subject matter, there are a few scenes that are very difficult to watch. One is described above and one I will detail below under a spoiler warning, because I feel it is worth mentioning (would also be considered a trigger warning), even though I generally keep a policy of being spoiler free in my reviews. That said, Edgerton handles these scenes well and they do not feel overdone or exploitative, but are no less harrowing to watch. 

The acting in the film is fantastic. Lucas Hedges carries the bulk of the film as Jared and does such a great job relating his character's anguish, uncertainty and worry. It's a really effective performance that I personally found quite moving. Joel Edgerton turns in a solid performance as Victor Sykes with a quietly convincing performance. It would have been so easy to make Sykes into a clear villain but instead Edgerton is able to convey Sykes clear, if horribly misguided, concern for Jared and his other students with a genuine desire to help them. Edgerton's Sykes is taking a certain tough love approach to them to try and set them on the path back to heterosexuality. Russell Crowe does well as Jared's dad, who like Victor Sykes, feels that sending his son to Ex-Gay "Therapy" is the right thing to do. Crowe does a good job conveying his concern and worry over his son, even if it too is misguided. Nicole Kidman also does well as Jared's Mom, Nancy. Her character starts out as the dutiful Preacher's wife, but develops as it goes on as she sees first hand what the so-called "therapy" her son is a part of. It's a wonderful performance and she brought some real emotion to the role. Troye Sivan has a solid supporting role as one of the other patients. He mostly known for his music, and does contribute a couple songs to the soundtrack as well, but I was impressed with his turn in the film in an acting capacity as well.          

Films centered on Ex-Gay "Therapy" are nothing new, but previous films, such as But I'm a Cheerleader took a sharply satirical approach to show how ridiculous it really is. Where Boy Erased sets itself apart is that it takes a fact based, realistic look at the practice and how truly damaging it can be. With strong acting and sure handed direction from Joel Edgerton, this was a deeply effective film that will stick with me for a long time. 

SPOILER WARNING!!!

So, here goes, I am divulging this plot point because I feel it is potentially worth knowing in advance. It was accidentally spoiled for me and in retrospect I'm glad I knew ahead of time. The nature of Jared's being outed is even more messed up than what I glossed over above. Henry starts out as Jared's friend at college. They go running together every day and Henry even takes him to his church, where he introduces him to another parishioner. It becomes clear that Jared is crushing on Henry a bit and Henry notices too. One night, the two are in Jared's dorm room alone, playing video games. Henry eventually comes on to Jared, who is uneasy about it but Henry doesn't stop when Jared asks him to and winds up raping him in his own dorm room in a very difficult to watch scene (and, according to director Joel Edgerton, equally hard to film). Henry eventually stops and backs off, sitting down on the floor crying and confessing he had done it before, to the guy they met at Henry's church. This experience leaves Jared shattered and he starts keeping his distance from Henry (understandably so), so Henry outs him to get him to leave school since he's worried Jared is going to report him. It's easily one of the most disturbing sequences in the film and wanted to include it in the review, but give my readers the choice if they wanted to know or not prior to viewing the film, hence why I included it at the end.