Lucas Hedges continues to establish himself as one of his generation’s best actors as a young gay man forced into conversion therapy by his Baptist parents (Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman) in Boy Erased, an adaptation of Garrard Conley’s memoir.
Hedges plays Jared (a character based on Conley), a college student who, after a horrible event on campus, reveals to his parents that he “thinks about men.” This sends his parents into a religious panic, and they send him to a facility where a shifty preacher/counselor (Joel Edgerton, who also directs and wrote the screenplay) tries to convince him that homosexuality is a sin and the wrong choice. Jared is forced to withstand psychological torture and gradually realizes that, despite his upbringing and the wishes of his parents, he’s gay—and no amount of bullshit preaching is going to change that.
Edgerton does a respectable job of keeping all of the characters based in reality; the crazed preachers and misguided parents have depth to them and aren’t reduced to caricature.
Kidman and Crowe are both very good, but the film’s main triumph is Hedges, who continues to amaze. The movie packs a wallop, and that’s due in large part to what Hedges brings to Jared.
Boy Erased is now playing at the Palm Desert 10 Cinemas (72840 Highway 111, Palm Desert; 760-340-0033) and the Century Theatres at The River and XD (71800 Highway 111, Rancho Mirage; 760-836-1940).
Boy Erased was a British depopulation and disarmament propaganda garbage movie that was never released or heard of in America aimed at depopulating and disarming America, ANOTHER ONE, except America has this British “author” spy and its comrade “actor” “mates” already sighted up for execution, the way America killed the dead British “actor” Heath Leger, so America isn’t worried about this propatainment garbage, as if America would ever be. The British government makers of this propaganda garbage are fraudulently marketing this as an American movie made in America by Americans. The British propaganda trolls on media site comment boards pretending to be Americans posting from America will never help them any, and would never even be expected to. The Bwitshit need to pick on someone much smaller than their superior WINNING enemies!!