Boy Erased Review
R: Sexual content including an assault, some language and brief drug use
Focus Features, Perfect World Pictures, Anonymous Content, Blue-Tongue Film
1 Hr and 54 Minutes
Writer/Dir: Joel Edgerton
Cast: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton, Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones, Flea, Russell Crowe
“Boy Erased” tells the courageous story of Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges), the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who must overcome the fallout of being outed to his parents (Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe). His parents struggle with reconciling their love for their son with their beliefs. Fearing a loss of family, friends, and community, Jared is pressured into attending a conversion therapy program. While there, Jared comes into conflict with its leader (Joel Edgerton) and begins his journey to finding his own voice and accepting his true self.
In 2015, actor Joel Edgerton leaped into the director’s chair and delivered his first feature as a writer/director, “The Gift” which was a phenomenal psychological thriller and also was one of the best films of that year. Now in 2018, he is back on the saddle with “Boy Erased” and one of the first things I give him credit for is his commitment to exhibiting range as a filmmaker. It’s quite a jump of genres from thriller to drama and for the most part the film feels authentic. From the dialect to the emotions expressed from each of the characters, they all feel real. You understand everyone and how passionate they are about their beliefs that it completely blinds them from the harm that is being done to these kids, especially the damage that is being done to Jared, not by the teachers, but by his own parents.
Three minutes in, after the film begins and you are thrown right in with Jared Eamons at this camp, it’s depicted how truly intense the situation is. Edgerton illustrates conversion therapy as the militaristic boot camp that it is. They go through exercises to teach them how to be more masculine and they offensively treat them like trash while doing them against their will. As I said, it's intense. The activities these young adults go through may seem standard given if they attended any other normal camp, but the mission statement this program has makes it far more terrifying. It destroys these people both physically and psychologically and it’s unsettling to watch. As the film goes on, the practices become far more psychologically despicable that it chokes you up and gut wrenchingly destroys you.
Edgerton boldly displays the level of horrors that the homosexual community goes through and never sugarcoats it for one second. You see the camp through our central character Jared who you root for as he’s forced into this situation.
Similar to Edgerton’s previous feature, “Boy Erased” is elevated by the level of discomfort you feel which immerses you into the narrative. There are moments that keep you gripped to your seat and that level of discomfort never lets up. There is a moment that sets the tone far darker than you expect that leaves you unsure what is to happen next.
Like many recent films, the narrative is told in a non linear format where it jumps around between the past and present. It goes back and forth from Jared’s time at the camp to the events leading up to it and you get to understand his unfortunate predicament rooted from his family. Being a homosexual offspring of very religious parents may be tough, but when you’re the offspring of the town’s Christian preacher, it’s even worse. It’s not because of the sexuality they discover within themselves, but the reaction that is received from the parent who forces their views and agenda on you.
While I don’t want to compare this to “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” for the fact that these two films have distinctively different narratives that focus on conversion therapy, which people should be aware of, Joel Edgerton provides better components that I believe were noticeably missing in “Cameron Post”. First off, the central characters are more fleshed out here. Then, you have the Christian teachers who run the camp who are not being played up for laughs. The priests and preachers are the antagonistic forces and they are scary as hell. The kids at the camp in “Cameron Post” had a bit of angst to them which allowed the film to have several sequences of humor, but the kids here are wounded. They are prisoners to this camp and the people who run it are a threat and use their religious beliefs as a means to abusively convert them. The film shows that, yeah, this camp is not just a facility, but a fucking prison. But most of all, it has the emotional impact which is bound to choke you up and make you bawl.
Talk about Edgerton being the double-edged sword of the production where he is the master coordinator off screen who adapts the film with care and powerful writing/direction, but on screen he’s this master conductor of conversion therapy who is just despicable, abusive, and ultimately the worst. You despise this character so much that you’re lost in the fact that the actor who portrays him wrote and directed the film you’re watching. So while you go, “Fuck you Joel Edgerton” you’re also saying, “Bless you Joel Edgerton.” He delivers a great performance as well. Like Bradley Cooper with “A Star Is Born”, he does an incredible job both off and on camera.
Then you’ve got Lucas Hedges. Holy crap.
This is his movie. Like my love (and my metaphorical son), Timothee Chalamet, Hedges proves that he's extremely talented with each film he stars in. At the young age of 21, it’s so impressive how he manages to deliver such a powerful performance. Even amongst experienced iconic actors such as Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, who are also remarkably incredible in the film, he proves once again that he is not just Lucas Hedges, but Academy Award-nominated actor Lucas Hedges! This is yet another Oscar-worthy performance under his belt and if he doesn't get nominated for this... well, at least we got one more Lucas Hedges movie to go through before the year ends.
Yeah, I’m looking at you “Ben is Back”! I see you, Lucas Hedges, trying to get that Oscar and I’m here for it.
I am actively open about my gripe against non linear storytelling if not done correctly. While this film is damn near great with its usage as it’s structure, the film at times does feel a bit jumbled. There are moments where you question, “What place does this event take place in? How did Jared end up here? Is this during his therapy days or prior?”
Thought-provoking, powerful, unsettling, and emotional, “Boy Erased” is an incredibly acted and fearlessly directed drama that rightfully raises conversation of conversion therapy. With this being his sophomore project as a filmmaker, Joel Edgerton has proven himself not only as a filmmaker with palpable range, but also as an incredible writer who knows how to deliver amazing feats of storytelling.
Rating: 4/5 | 89%
