I need to find new ways to do these reviews. This is
the third movie this year about the fear and/or consequences of coming out that
I've seen in theaters. Love, Simon took the
most pleasant view. It was a refreshingly optimistic coming out story. The Miseducation of Cameron Post was a
different extreme, with Cameron being sent off to a remote gay conversion school.
Boy Erased, is kind of a middle ground. I'm going to skip past my
opening shpeil about how I can't imagine what it's like to come out or to have
to risk my family disowning me for something I can't change about myself. That
should be understood by now. It's an awful thing, so let's get right into the movie.
Boy Erased is
based on a memoir of the same name. It's about Jared (Lucas Hedges), a pastor's
son, who gets outed to his parents (played by Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman),
who send him to a gay conversion day program. Jared isn't entirely there against
his will. He feels shame over being gay, at least initially. While the movie
goes through the increasingly severe "lessons" during
"therapy", it cuts to flashbacks showing how he got there. Some of
the flashbacks are happy, others are not. A couple are real damn complex.
Unlike Cameron Post (I'll keep the lazy
comparisons to a minimum), Boy Erased is very much about its main
character. Jared isn't a cipher. We are watching his story and Hedges is
pretty great. That young man wears conflict well. He spends the movie
constantly in thought, processing his situation like he's assembling a jigsaw
puzzle. What can he be certain about? When should he say something? When should
he stand up for himself? When he does finally figure things out, it's very much
earned, because it isn't an epiphany that happens in a moment. It's the result
of a mental tug-o-war.
Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe do a
lot to remind me why they are Oscar winners. Kidman's last few years have been
pretty incredible with Lion,
Big Little Lies, and
this (not to mention Destroyer in a few weeks, which looks intense). She
is the immediately more sympathetic parent, although she isn't without blame.
Crowe isn't a villain or a saint. He's a man whose beliefs are challenged and
he's slow to sort that out. The movie doesn't try to make his arc neat. There's
damage to the relationship with his son (and it's his fault), but there's love
too.
The hardest thing about a movie like this is
resisting the urge to punch down. The degree to which it does says a lot about
the audience it is targeting. Frankly, Jared has the moral high ground at the
gay conversion camp. The people who work there are spouting pseudo-science at
best and hateful, dangerous lies at worst. The running theory is that if you
are watching Boy Erased, you already know those places are awful. So,
how serious should the threat be? If you make them too incompetent, then that
gives the audience too much room to laugh it off like it's not a threat. If you
legitimize the effort too much (ie. play devil's advocate too well) then that's
also a problem. Boy Erased strikes a good balance. It deflates the
conversion program enough that you always remember they aren't accredited, but
it also gives you a good idea of the shame and fear tactics they use. It's a
real but receding threat. Writer/director Joel Edgerton also casts himself as
the head of the center and it's an odd role. He's the villain but he isn't
twirling his mustache. The movie doesn't hint as hard as I would've expected at
him being closeted himself. There isn't a lot of inner struggle in that
character. He's more of a zealot who only knows a few tactics. Effective and
severe tactics, but tactics nonetheless. When he's reasonably challenged, he's
pretty impotent.
Boy Erased may
be preaching to the choir, but it's singing a good song*. The performances
carry it, and the source material is used to tell a personal story. I wasn't
wowed by Edgerton's direction. He tried to go for the money shot a little too
hard, using shifts in focus and slow motion to really beat the audience over
the head at times. Mostly though, the direction stays out of the way of the
actors and lets them shine.
*Please don't think too hard about how strained that
metaphor is.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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