They try to force-feed and reprogram him about who he should be, what he should do, how he should sit, stand and speak. Jared earnestly approaches the conversion therapy, trying to accept that he can be trained to change.Īs Jared struggles to approach the laughable and absurd lesson plans - which mostly blame parental mistakes and outside influences for contaminating the supposedly pure versions of these kids - he comes to grips with what he knows to be true about himself despite the psychobabble pretense.
In the film Garrard is Jared and he’s played by the wonderful Lucas Hedges. Woven throughout this film is the ingrained myth that being gay is “wrong” in the eyes of God, that the supposed creator of all things somehow creates children that parents will need to repair. Edgerton navigates the boundary with grace and sensitivity.Īlso Read: Lucas Hedges Struggles With Gay Conversion Therapy in 'Boy Erased' Trailer (Video)īased on the memoir by Garrard Conley, “Boy Erased” tells the story of the 19-year-old son of a Baptist preacher (Crowe) who is outed by a fellow student (its own complicated story) and told in no uncertain terms by his father that he will be banished from their family, from their lives, if he doesn’t seek “treatment” for his “affliction.” What to show, what not to show - that was the question. “Cameron Post” was released unrated because of its frank sexuality, but “Boy Erased” was made to carefully escape that fate, as Edgerton made clear in the Q&A afterwards. Now, the Telluride Film Festival has premiered “Boy Erased,” another film on the same subject adapted and directed by Joel Edgerton and starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.īoth films seek to reach the tens of thousands of teens every year who are forced into damaging conversion therapy that attempts to “fix” what their misguided parents believe is “wrong” with them. Earlier this year, “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” an outstanding film about gay conversion therapy starring Chloe Moretz and directed by Desiree Akhavan, premiered at Sundance and opened in August to good reviews.