The film begins with Cameron (Chloe Grace Moretz) getting caught at a dance, steaming up the windows in the back seat of a car at a school dance with a female friend of hers. Cameron's family freaks out and sends her to a remote gay conversion therapy camp/school. That's where the majority of the film takes place. The film is mostly an exploration of the different types of "students" there, with Cameron as an observer, trying to figure out what kind of "student" she wants to be. Her roommate, Erin (Emily Skeggs), has given into the conversion therapy with a zealot's determination. She's going to crush it with persistence and fidelity to the strict rules. Other students are just going through the steps until they're able to go home or think that doing it will get their family to love them again. It's heartbreaking stuff that they try to normalize or rationalize as best they can. Cameron is the most attracted to the class rebels, Jane and Adam (Sasha Lane and Forrest Goodluck), who undermine the whole thing every chance they get. And the center is run by Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) and her first successful conversion - her brother Rick (John Gallagher Jr.).
I'm not sure what I expected from this movie. I came out of it underwhelmed though. The screenplay and direction make some odd, intentional, and possibly savvy decisions. The stakes feel low for a lot of the movie. Other than the fact that the students are trapped there, the camp feels harmless enough. Ehle is a strawman villain: more of a general authoritarian than someone who feels like a real threat. Gallagher is a chump to be laughed at by the students. He thinks he's converted, but it's obvious to anyone but him that he's a rubber band pulled so tightly that it's ready to snap. The students normalize everything so much that you almost forget why they're there. Most of them approach the therapy like students trying to get the best grade in the class. The lessons of the conversion therapy sessions are laughable pseudo-science. The majority of the movie is spent looking down on it all derisively. It's almost satire. I know the audience I saw it with laughed at how dumb things were a lot.
Then, the movies make a hard left turn where it reminds everyone that this does real harm. The fact that the staff doesn't know what they're doing isn't funny. It's scary and dangerous. This place has real consequences and most people come out of it mentally scarred if not physically. It's an effective turn that I've appreciated more in the days since I've seen it.
A lot of actors do really fine work in this. Moretz has grown a lot over the years. She made her name as a child actress who was great at swearing and sounding more adult than she was. A lot of her performance was through her dialogue. In Cameron Post, she's more of an observer, taking things in. She isn't very chatty, and manages to be quiet without ever being dull. Sasha Lane is very good at playing the Sasha Lane character: a free spirit with healthy doses of confidence and vulnerability. Emily Skeggs is really likable despite how tightly wound she is. I think I'm most impressed by John Gallagher Jr. His dead-eyed stare is magnificent. You can see the internal battle that's raging in him at all times. In a version of this movie where he had a bigger role, I'd be banging a drum for him to get an Oscar nomination a few months from now.
This is a Sundance movie, and you can tell. Sundance movies often feel more like short stories than novels. They are one course short of a full meal. That's how I feel about The Miseducation of Cameron Post. It needed a little more. It's a movie that's punching down most of the time. The antagonists are toothless. The movie has open derision for everything about the conversion center. The decision to set the movie in the 1990s rather than the present even takes away some urgency. It makes it feel a mistake from the past, not something that people still deal with. I think I would've liked it more if the movie spent less time looking down on the gay conversion therapy and more time on why people actually buy into it. Overall, a good movie that didn't feel complete.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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