Reviews
Film Review
Directed by Joel Edgerton (2018)
Hugh A. Taylor, MFA Alumnus, Maryland Institute College of Art Ellicott City, Maryland Tel: (410) 245-2296 Email: [email protected]
Editor’s Note Among many remembrances, this year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. On June 28, 1969, a horrific police raid took place at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. The horrors of that night led to massive uprisings and the birth of the gay liberation movement. The community rose up to resist the hate and discrimination they knew --- an experience that sadly still continues in our own times toward many including LGBTQ+ persons. In the memory of Stonewall, the film review to follow is most timely. It is our hope that it can inspire us to rise up always and fight against any and all types of bigotry that ultimately destroy our very nature as human beings.
Author Note The insights or views expressed in this review are those of the author. They do not reflect official policy of any of the institutions the author serves. The author has no conflicts of interest.
Introduction Throughout the history of our nation, there have been a great many moments of achievement in which we as citizens take pride. Included among these are monumental occasions that will celebrate 50th anniversaries this year, such as the Woodstock Festival or the Apollo 11 landing on the moon – accomplishments that inspire not only national pride, but pride in the advancement and enlightenment of humanity as a whole. The world indeed is a better place for having known such experiences and moments. But these moments of joy, of love and light, of music and awestruck wonder, are only one side of the coin. The darker side, a stained side that casts a shadow on our humanity, is what is explored in Boy Erased (2018).
Based upon the memoir by Garrard Conley, Boy Erased is a soulful and heart-wrenching look into the life of a young gay man who is put into a conversion therapy center by his mother
158 Volume V, No. 1 Journal of Health and Human Experience Reviews and father. Starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe, and directed by Joel Edgerton, the film tells the harrowing story of the kind of persecution and prejudice LGBTQ+ persons have faced and continue to face at the hands of community leaders and family members throughout the nation.
Edgerton continues to shine in this directorial effort. While the cinematography is nothing revolutionary, to be expected from an actor-turned-director in his second outing, Edgerton manages to encourage and bolster incredible performances from his cast, and he allows these performances to tell the story front-and-center. Each cast member excels in this supremely genuine glimpse into the tragedy of conversion centers.
Summary At the center of the film is Jared (Hedges), the young man who is struggling with his budding sexual identity. The movie makes use of a non-linear narrative style, intercutting Jared’s experiences in the conversion center with those of his high school and college days. Jared’s father (Crowe) is an Arkansas pastor who deals in fiery rhetoric, and his mother (Kidman) is likewise a devout Christian. Jared is shown to be the object of their affections – after a game of basketball in which Jared rides the bench, his father tells him how proud he is and hands him the keys to a car. We see Jared’s idyllic small-town life as he and his girlfriend prepare to leave for college, but we also see that Jared is not quite comfortable with the sexual advances made by his high school sweetheart.
After arriving at college, Jared quickly makes a new friend in Henry (Joe Alwyn). The two bond over a shared love of athleticism, but Jared’s curiosity soon becomes obvious. In an incredibly harrowing scene, Henry assaults Jared, leading him to leave school for a few days. When he returns home, a phone call from a suspicious Henry outs Jared to his father. This proves to be the catalyst for Jared’s commitment to the “Love in Action” conversion center.
The opening scene in the center is clinical and starkly controlled, reminiscent of a prison or a day-camp version of Auschwitz. When Jared reads the rules of the center from the guidebook provided to him, the rules seep into every miniscule aspect of life. Body language is to be regulated with precision, contact with other patients is strictly forbidden “apart from a brief handshake”, and posture is engineered to display masculinity or femininity rather than comfort. All reading material and films are forbidden, and creativity is oppressively stifled. Through these group therapy sessions Jared meets several other young men and women questioning their sexuality, which introduces us to the level of self-hatred and indoctrination that is encouraged in this environment. One young man salutes instead of hand-shaking, aiming to make absolutely zero contact with other people’s bodies. From this young man, and from a confrontation with head counselor Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton), Jared learns that he could end up involuntarily committed to the center if Sykes decides to do so.
The true horrors of the center are revealed when one of the young men refuses to call his gay feelings sinful. After Sykes shouts at him mercilessly, the entire center bears witness to a biblical attempt at an exorcism encouraged by the boy’s family. Onlookers take turns beating the boy with a bible, and then follow as he is taken to a bathtub and submerged. Soon after, the victimized boy returns to a therapy session claiming to be renewed.
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The climax of the film takes place when Jared’s time to confess to the therapy group has come. As he attempts to do what is demanded of him and ask God to forgive his so-called “sinful thoughts,” Sykes confronts him. He demands Jared confess to having been sexually assaulted by Ricky, which Jared refuses to do. The escalated shouting match that ensues culminates in Jared running from the room and calling his mother to help him escape the center. He is aided in this endeavor by the exorcized boy, who escorts Jared from the room.
Afterwards, Jared’s mother admits that she has realized the error and the danger inherent in the center’s message, and she helps him to leave. She tells Jared that she will not allow his father to send him back to the center. Upon Jared’s return home, the police arrive to inform him that the boy who helped him leave has committed suicide.
The film ends with an epilogue four years after these events where we see Jared writing for the New York Times and happily living with his partner in the city. He returns home after finding out that his father will not read his article about the “Love in Action” conversion center; and the two have a powerful conversation in which Jared and his father attempt to reconcile their differences, which ends the film on an optimistic, hopeful note.
Reflection “At the completion of this film, 36 states still legally allow conversion therapy to be practiced on minors.”
These words appear on screen before the credits begin to roll. In light of the upcoming 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the implication of this one single sentence becomes harrowing. Fifty years after this historic festival and the inspired beauty of a movement emboldening personal expression and sexual liberation for all, conversion centers akin to “Love in Action” continue to exist --- and even to be encouraged as a form of treatment for what is by many falsely perceived as an illness.
Despite the lack of an auteur’s touch in the cinematography, Joel Edgerton has in this film told a powerful and compelling story through the performances of his cast. Viewers truly suffer alongside Jared and the band of misfits surrounding him, tormented as they are by an oppressive and nonunderstanding culture. Yet the cruel atmosphere that suffocates the actors is a mere facsimile of a suffering that is inflicted upon young LGBTQ+ persons daily throughout this country and throughout the world.
While the film ends on a hopeful note, the continued existence of and support for these centers reminds us that tragedy continues to exist here in the land of Woodstock, of those three days in August of 1969 when music, love, and freedom became the mantra of the nation. As we look back and celebrate a half-century since that empowering summer of love, it becomes imperative that we remember the rigid stain of pseudo-fascism that still resides in the greater part of our country. Thirty-six states in our Union still legally allow for the practice of conversion therapy on minors. This is the atonal harshness beneath the harmony.
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However, the hopeful nature of the film’s conclusion should also inspire that same hope in all viewers. A pervasive theme of this film is that of reconciliation, as throughout Jared struggles to reconcile his faith and his love for his family with his sexuality and his own personality. During his shouting match with Sykes, Jared refuses to say that he hates his father, despite the fact that his father is responsible for sending him to the center. When Jared and his father take the first steps towards reconciliation and understanding in the final scene, we should see an aspiring ideal. Jared’s father, who championed the conversion center at the start of Jared’s journey, by the end promises he will be the one to attempt a change. They part on amicable terms, with the understanding that more good is to follow.
It is the hope of the film, and of the truth in the story itself, to imbue this compassionate spirit within all who see it, and to inspire us to continue along the road of acceptance and empowerment we started on so many years ago. Edgerton has done a magnificent job of translating this message, speaking both to the harsh and unnerving truth of the present as well as to the optimism and reassurance of a future based not on oppression but on freedom. Photo by Seth Goldstein LGBTQ Anti-Discrimination March in Philadelphia, PA, February 2017.
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