Boy Erased — Boy, do I sure want to erase conversion therapy forever!
Boy Erased (2018) is truly a difficult film to watch, but in all honesty, it should be. I would be concerned if after watching this movie, I walked away from it saying “Gee, that sure was entertaining!” The takeaway of this film is on a much deeper level , one which makes you feel empathy. Not only for the main character, but for all people who struggle with their coming out journeys.
Boy Erased follows Lucas Hedges as Jared Eamons, the son of a southern pastor, who partakes in a gay conversion therapy group. The story goes back and forth between Jared’s time when he is in conversion therapy and when he was in college having different experiences with men. The film’s plot is pretty slow, and doesn’t really pick up until close to the end, when Jared gains his voice. Upon doing so, he realizes that conversion therapy is wrong, and chooses to leave the group.
If you did not know that the movie was based on true events, then the more intense parts of the plot would be quite disappointing from a storytelling perspective. For instance, the family only really comes to terms with how dangerous conversion therapy is once they learn that a gay teen in the program committed suicide. Likewise, Jared’s first sexual encounter with a man was when he was raped in college. If these events were not true, then it would feel almost unfair to the viewer; like the creator of Boy Erased did not trust the audience enough to pick up on how Jared is feeling as a person, and in order to really drive the point across, the creator had to revert to the most drastic of situations so that the viewers could feel sympathetic towards Jared.
I do wish that Nicole Kidman’s character played a larger role in the film. Her performance as Jared’s mother is outstanding. Towards the end of the movie, her character recognizes that she does not need to stand by her husband’s decision. That she does not need to “fall in line,” as she puts it, as a good wife, and agree to send her son to conversion therapy just because that’s what her husband wants to do. She takes the power back and concludes that she has to do what is best for her son, and it’s time her husband falls in line with her for a change. It is an excellent portrayal of a loving mother. But I also wish that the film had taken the time to focus on her character more, so we could have learned who she is as a person outside of her role as mother and wife.
I would definitely say that Lucas Hedges’ performance is an accurate portrayal of a young adult coming to terms with his sexuality that audience members can relate to. However, Jared is not only struggling with who he is, but who he is in relation to his Christian faith and devoutly religious family. As far as racial and religious diversity goes, this film is all white and all Christian; you only get a glimpse of one African American in the entire film and it’s for the quantity of a millisecond. But in all actuality, this is an accurate depiction of Arkansas, where the population is 72% Caucasian, 88% Christian, and ranks in the top five U.S. states which identifies as highly religious (thank you Kaiser Family Foundation, Gallup, and Pew Research Center). However, if we are talking about LGBTQIA representation and diversity, then the film certainly has that. By the end of the film, the main character does come to terms with the fact that he is indeed gay and that is not something he can or wants to change about himself. The movie also features Troye Sivan, a popular LGBTQIA singer whom audiences might recognize from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or from Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” music video, and song collaboration “Dance To This”.
Although Boy Erased is certainly telling an important story, its four year time jump skips over a very important piece: how Jared came to accept himself as gay. Instead, viewers are left with a lackluster denouement, leaving this reviewer unsatisfied with the film’s ending.
