Review of Boy Erased, directed by Joel Edgerton

I have a confession to make, and, unlike the people forced to confess in the movie, this one is a lot more innocent: I’ve been procrastinating on watching this movie for five years.

I was a freshman in college when this film first came out, and I wanted to see it back then, but I literally pulled off one of the biggest procrastinations that I’ve gone through with in my career so far.

There are no words to describe how excited I was to see this when it came out, too, as I was a massive Lucas Hedges fan then.

I’d even seen him in the Broadway production of The Waverly Gallery as a part of my honors college field trips.

What finally inspired me to watch this in 2023 though is the fact I turned on my Netflix when I wanted a movie to play while doing some work, and I saw for the first time that Boy Erased had been added to the lineup of movies. So I pressed play!

Anyways, I’ve rambled enough already. Let’s get into the review.

The gay son of a pastor is sent to a conversion therapy program.

Our main character of Boy Erased is Jared, who lives in Arkansas with his parents.

His father is a car dealer and preacher, and the film begins with him going off to a gay conversion therapy program off in Tennessee with his mother supervising.

We don’t know the full details of what happened until later, as the movie sprinkles in flashbacks to give a holistic view of what happened to him and how his parents found out about his sexuality.

But when he arrives at the camp, the main therapist tells everyone there that the reason for their sexuality is because their parents essentially sucked.

He tells them that they need to not tell anyone about their therapy sessions and what they do in the program, and the homework assignments consist of things like making a family tree and labeling any family members who might’ve done something sinful.

Jared’s is his uncle, who his mother, first concerned at what this assignment is asking, confirms that he might’ve been gay.

What the camp asks of its members gets progressively worse, forcing them to confess, and one angry parent even withdraws his son from the program after admonishing them for how much he paid and what they’re forcing them to do.

Jared continues hiding what the camp expects from his mother, but she begins to suspect something is going on from the way her son is acting.

The flashbacks then begin. Jared was a basketball player in high school and had a thing going with a girl, but when she tries to make a move on him sexually, they realize he might not be straight.

He breaks up with the girl when he goes off to college, and there, he makes friends with a guy named Henry. One night, when Henry stays over in Jared’s dorm room, Henry rapes Jared and then has a mental breakdown, telling him that he did the same thing to another boy.

Jared goes home after, but Henry calls Jared’s parents and pretends to be a school counselor.

He outs Jared as gay to try and get him to be quiet about what he did to him, and then Jared’s parents know. First he denies it, but when he confesses, his father signs him up for the conversion program.

Meanwhile, in the present, Jared realizes therapy will not end if he does not convince them he is straight. Eventually, he tells his mother what is going on, and when she reads the pamphlet, she realizes it doesn’t even sound professional.

Another student, Cameron, is forced into a fake funeral where he’s told he is going to hell after he fails an assignment, and his family and the therapist beat him with their Bibles. When it’s Jared’s turn to confess, he thinks of a specific moment, but the head therapist takes this as something that’s not worthy of confession.

Jared leaves after he’s pushed too far and calls his mother, and Cameron stands up for Jared. They drive back home, his mother tells his father off, and Jared learns not long after that Cameron killed himself.

The years pass, Jared moves to New York with a boyfriend. He writes about his experiences, and he tells his father to change himself, not Jared. He then invites him over for Christmas.

Overall Thoughts

For obvious reasons this can be such a difficult movie to watch, but I think it’s worth noting that this is based on a memoir and true story that happened to its author.

Although it seems like something in a distant past, these are programs that still exist in the United States, and a lot of people are grappling with the fact that their families might genuinely hate them because of who they are.

Although I wouldn’t say this is a great film on a technical level, but it is an important one.

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