After two movies, the jury is still out on Joel Edgerton as a director. After catching fire with 2015’s surprise hit The Gift, Edgerton tried his hand with material based on a true story, adapting and writing the screenplay for Garrard Conley’s novel Boy Erased. To be perfectly transparent, I had extremely high expectations for this film. This was actually a novel that I read a couple of years ago, well before I knew that a film based on the story was in the process. I enjoyed the novel, and when I saw that the cast was to include Edgerton, Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and that it was already being mentioned in Oscar discussions before it was released, I was more than excited. However, I knew that the topic of this film was a controversial one. When I read the book, I don’t think that I was dissatisfied with the ending, but one that I felt was rushed quite a bit. Boy Erased was definitely one of my ten most anticipated films of the year. And like a few others in my ten most anticipated films of the year (namely First Man), it completely failed to impress. A film that should have been ripe with emotion left me completely unaffected the entire time.

Boy Erased follows the story of Jared Conlon (Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea, Mid90’s) and his experiences at Love In Action, a gay conversion program. Conlon, in 2004, was a freshman in college when he grows close to Henry (Joe Alwyn – Operation Finale, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), one of his dormmates. The pair shares a love for running and attending church. One night when Jared’s roommate is away from school, Henry sleeps over. In the middle of the night, Henry rapes Jared. Afterward, a distraught Henry instantly apologizes profusely, telling his victim that he has a problem and tells him that there was a guy at his church that he’s done “bad things,” almost refusing to take ownership and responsibility for what he has just done.

Both boys have a thick Christian background. We don’t know a ton about Henry, but we see him inviting Jared to church almost as soon as they become acquainted. Henry’s church is very different than Jared’s, which is far more traditional. Henry’s church plays Christian rock music with people raising their hands in the air and dancing all around. Jared’s is quiet and strict, with heavy organs and congregation singing the only real breaks from the traditional preaching. Jared’s father, Marshall (Russell Crowe – Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind), is the church’s pastor in the small, conservative town. He also owns the local Ford dealership. He and his wife Nancy (Nicole Kidman – The Hours, The Others) are well-to-do and have a perfect life. Marshall is heavily involved in the life of his one child, boasting proudly on Jared’s play in a high school basketball game, even though he only got into the game for the last five minutes after his team won by a blowout. He’s so proud that he gives his son his early birthday gift, a brand new Ford vehicle.

The balance and transition between present-day events with Jared at Love in Action and the past events that lead him up to this point in his life is what Edgerton does best. Though the “past” events are really no more than a year in the past, there is still a clear distinction between what is happening in the present and what has happened in the past. And I’m not really sure of the techniques that allow this to be successful. Jared looks the same. His personality ironically hasn’t changed that much. And maybe it’s because I read the book, but I was never lost with the movie’s progression or its sequencing. Edgerton succeeded where Felix Van Groeningen (Beautiful Boy – one of my other most anticipated films of 2018 failed), and this may have been what helped keep Boy Erased from being a complete disaster.

In addition to the direction, the acting was quite good. I wouldn’t say it was exceptional. I had seen that all four names (Hedges, Edgerton, Kidman, Crowe) had been mentioned in early Oscar discussion before the film’s release. With the film’s release, much of that talk has died down. I don’t think any have a legitimate case. Hedges’ performance was surprisingly average. I thought this was going to be the movie that propelled his name into the realm of mainstream America, much like My Week with Marilyn did for Eddie Redmayne back in 2011 (note: I still think that this could happen with Ben is Back, one of his other movies being released in 2018…we’ll see). Speaking of Ben is Back and Beautiful Boy, Kidman’s performance is likely to be lump summed with that of Julia Roberts (Ben is Back) and Amy Ryan (Beautiful Boy), both of who are also playing mothers grieving over their troubled teenage sons.

Crowe wasn’t needed in this film. His character was, but anyone could have played it. That’s not saying Crowe was bad because he wasn’t. Looking larger physically than ever, Crowe’s Marshall plays a father tormented by his life for his son and his love for the Bible and obedience to God. Worried that he might report Henry for raping him after Jared distances himself from the man who violated him. This makes Henry extremely angry, and he is paranoid that Jared will tell school officials or local authorities what he did. So instead, he calls Jared’s mother and pretends to be a counselor at the university. He tells her that Jared seems to be gay, and there is cause for concern. Jared, defending himself, tells his parents that the man who called his mother is not a counselor and just a person that Jared knew from school who had confessed to him that he raped a man at his church and was afraid that Jared would report. But this small action sends off a whirlwind of emotions in Jared’s after Jared does admit having same-sex attraction.

He is taken to Love in Action, where a foreboding man named Victor Sykes (Edgerton – Warrior, Loving) welcomes a new group “of patients?” to his gay conversion therapy center. At orientation, in a very vocal way, Victor gives the demonstration of a crumpled dollar still having the same worth as a crisp dollar. A dollar that has been ripped can be taped together to be whole. In his opinion, homosexuality is a choice, much like playing football is a choice. The outpatient program (9 a.m. – 5 p.m. each day) is to be discussed only by those participating. I don’t think they ever say where this center is (maybe they do), but it is far enough away from home, which means that Jared and his mother share a hotel room each night. We meet other young people in the facility, but none of them are really memorable. From the book, I remember him talking about others in the program more than the film does here, which makes perfect sense from a time standpoint.

Of course, Jared doesn’t want to have same-sex attraction and would prefer the ease of having a life where he is attracted to women. But it doesn’t ever feel like he believes this Love In Action will work and is only doing so because his mother and father make him. He doesn’t see himself as broken or crumbled like a dollar, but he is made to believe that he is less of a person because of the therapies he and others are put through and the way that the counselors are constantly berating them with derogatory terms and not giving them the chance to fight back. It prompts Jared, a natural writer, to eventually speak out against the program and gay conversion therapies in general, especially those that force minors to attend.

Now, I am well aware that what I just gave was not really a review and more a scene by scene. And the reason for this is to discuss what this movie is saying and not what it told. As a whole, there isn’t much of a story here. Or, rather, this story could be a story told thousands of different times. As the credits roll in Boy Erased, we learn that in 2018 there are 34 states in our country where gay conversion therapy can be forced upon minors and that this has affected 700,000 youth. That is the story that Jared (or really the author Garrard Conley) wants to be known. I’ve said so often and so many times in my reviews that, despite what the Bible says and despite what many others say, that I don’t believe homosexuality is a choice. Gay rights are fundamental to me. I have a lot of friends that are gay…some who are open about and living amazing lives with their same-sex partner, some who are at various stages of struggling with it, some who are in denial, and some who are deciding to not live an LFBTQ lifestyle because of their religious beliefs or for other reasons. My heart bleeds for those who are struggling with it and just wants those feelings to go away. And, for those who want those feelings to go away, I want that too. But I’ve been around it enough where it doesn’t seem like that happens. I don’t think it’s a choice. I think homosexuality is something that you are born with. And I don’t think it is a sin if you act on those ways. Some of the most loving I have ever seen are woman-woman or man-man. Denying someone the right to love someone that they were destined to be with is not right. I love the hashtag #RightToLove. And as a heterosexual man who deals with a couple of different mental disorders, I could not imagine having the added weight of being gay in 2018 on my shoulders. And by that, I don’t mean that it is a weight on every gay person’s shoulders. I just know how I process things, and the way some people throughout our country treat gays is awful. Many in this country treat gay people is similar to how we treated African-Americans for God knows how long and similar to how we treated people of the Muslim faith around 9/11. There are awful people in this world. But never has awfulness been identified by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. This is our issue. It is in our time of history that various states in our country have allowed same-sex marriages. 100 years from now, our descendants will be looking at us the same way that we look at our ancestors who were so awful to African Americans in the 1960s, and before, and unfortunately after including today. They will wonder what the hold-up was. Why did it take dozens and dozens of years for the last state in our union to grant same-sex marriages after the first state in our union did. And, as a Christian, if you want to say, “well, the Bible says…”. The Bible says a lot of things, but it says more than anything to love. God is Love. And if someone were to ask me how I can be a Christian and support the rights of gays, I’m never going to get into a discussion with them. I’ll simply say, “If you think I can’t be a Christian and support gay rights, then I guess you’re a better Christian than I am,” and then walk away. Let them sit there and ponder. It’s of nothing to me.

So going back to Boy Erased, I appreciate Conley’s story and the voice that he put behind it. I appreciate Edgerton trying to bring the movie to life. I appreciate the attempts of Edgerton as a director and the whole cast to show how their struggles with this controversial therapy. But, for me, I found this movie to be underwhelming. There just wasn’t a lot of substance, and whenever I felt like we were moving in a certain direction, Edgerton reigned the chains a little bit and went in another direction. He’s still learning his craft as a director. He’ll get better. I just didn’t feel like I learned very much that I didn’t already know by watching this film, and I believe I would say the same thing had I not read the book. It’s a Netflix DVD watch at best.

Plot 7/10
Character Development 6/10
Character Chemistry 6/10
Acting 7/10
Screenplay 7.5/10
Directing  7/10
Cinematography 7/10
Sound 9.5/10
Hook and Reel 7.5/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
74.5%