Boy Erased Review (2018): Let’s Not Pretend That This is Ancient History
OK, disclaimer. This is going to be another glowing review, but it’s December so this is what happens. Studios save their best films for this time of year so that the Academy members remember them when it’s time to vote for the Oscars. But sometimes (like with Boy Erased), we’re not just talking about the mode of the art (acting, writing, directing etc.) but we also get to talk about the message.
Boy Erased is a story adapted from the memoirs of a college student who has been forcibly outed to his parents and then forced to participate in gay conversion therapy. As upsetting of a premise as this is, this is a true story about a real man, that this happened to in this century. Of course, the people in his life assumed several things: that he made a choice to be gay, that God hated him for this choice, and that he could change it.
So before we talk about the message, let’s talk about the art (and yes, I know those two things overlap, but allow me my false dichotomy for this 3 min read). Here we have, again, Lucas Hedges, punching his annual Oscar Season passport for the 3rd year in a row (2016 — Manchester by the Sea; 2017 — 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Ladybird), but this is the first time we get to see him take the lead. And the stakes are high. He’s playing a real person, who is still alive, and has already published his thoughts on this topic (wherein “this topic” = his life). His name is Garrard Conley and though I’ve never met him, I am hopeful that he feels honored by the way in which Hedges portrays his vulnerability, brokenness, and gumption.
And this review would be incomplete without my mentioning of Joel Edgerton’s writing and directing. We’re used to seeing him on the screen (and we get to in this too), but here, in only his second time behind the camera, the audience gets to experience him in a way that is hopefully oft-repeated. He was the one who adapted Conley’s memoirs for the screen, and I loved the storytelling. The fictional version of Conley’s character is named Jared Eamons. Jared is charged with an assignment during his 2-week conversion therapy known as a “moral inventory” in which he must write down (and then read aloud to the group) the ways he has transgressed. Edgerton seizes this opportunity for some simple yet poignant non-linear storytelling, as the audience comes to learn how Jared found himself where he is at the movie’s beginning: in a white shirt and khaki uniform, reading the list of rules for conversion therapy, which include supervised bathroom visits and physical contact limited to a brief handshake.
This movie, while it is at times excruciating to watch, is hopeful in its tone. As usual, we’re not super sure of the overall tone of the movie until the end and *spoiler* his parents kinda come around. Despite being immersed in the only context they’ve ever known (fundamentalist Baptist), at least according this version of the story, they both, in their own timing, admit there might be more to this issue than they know. And they want to be educated. And what better time is there for you to question one of your fundamental beliefs than when someone you love shakes your categories?
And conversion therapy is still happening. I know people whose parents have suggested versions of this to them. This didn’t exactly crush at the box office, but if this movie causes the parents of even one boy or girl to question what they thought they knew about sexuality, then it was all worth it. And if it doesn’t, then the rest of us get to enjoy this beautiful work of art from a great filmmaker and his cast. Plus I am still hoping for a late-season surge in viewership due to its two Golden Globe nominations (Best Actor and Best Original Song) and hopefully its impending Oscar nominations.
9/10 for me for ambition in bringing this issue to light, acting from Hedges and writing/directing from Edgerton. Go see it and try to talk to someone about it.
