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Boy Erased

A trenchant and dynamic indictment of gay conversion therapy.

Boy Erased

Grade: B+

Director: Joel Edgerton (The Gift)

Screenplay: Edgerton from Garrard Conley memoir

Cast: Lucas Hedges (Mid90s), Nicole Kidman (The Beguiled)

Rating: R

Runtime: 1 hr 55 min

By: John DeSando

“Fake It Till You Make It”—Gary (Troye Sivan)

Gays have battles on every front today, and they are winning, even at times when faking being straight is mandatory for survival. If you don’t believe me, see the stirring and engaging Boy Erased. Young Jared (Lucas Hedges) is sent to gay conversion therapy. Whether or not he is gay will be determined by his lengthy stay and their unsettling conversion methods.

The film takes a cautious approach, where initially both Jared and therapists slowly dance around their mutual ability to change his growing inclination to like men rather than women. As Hedges expertly plays Jared, he is buffeted not just by staunch Christians like his father (Russell Crowe playing a preacher and auto dealership owner) but also by himself as he seems to truly want to convert (There is a strong evangelical leaning for those interested in his change).

The value in this quiet indictment of conversion therapy is its non-threatening awareness of our inability to change a fundamental orientation like being gay. Mind you, 39 states still allow the therapy.

Mom Nancy (Nicole Kidman) can be trusted to most closely identify with our own discomfort about the severe indoctrination. Nicole Kidman beautifully plays the accommodating Southern mother until she can accommodate no more; she takes on the feminist mantle and gay-positive posture Jared so needs.

The eventual emphasis on Nancy’s nurturing relationship with her son, as it eventually clashes with the good-old boy paternalism, is a confirming highlight of the right to indulge our natures, no matter how odd our choices may be. A mother’s instincts are better than those of phony therapists and zealous clerics.

Joel Edgerton once again proves himself adept at directing (The Gift was an especially bright thriller in which he plays the villain). He takes us non-linear in and out of Jared’s life that leads to his therapy. Well done considering the discursive flashback strategy has been overused lately. As if being a fine actor were not enough for Edgerton, he shows up here playing the lead therapist without portfolio.

This moving and instructive drama poses more questions than answers; however, what it does so effectively is to show the consequences of fooling around with Mother Nature.

John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com

John DeSando holds a BA from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in English from The University of Arizona. He served several universities as a professor, dean, and academic vice president. He has been producing and broadcasting as a film critic on It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics for more than two decades. DeSando received the Los Angeles Press Club's first-place honors for national entertainment journalism.