THE NEW YORK TIMES
By A.O. Scott
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| Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe in the new trailer for #BoyErased, featuring the new original song “Revelation” by Troye Sivan & Jónsi. In theaters this November. Written for the screen and directed by Joel Edgerton, based on Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith and Family by Garrard Conley. |
Jared Eamons, an Arkansas college student who is an avid runner and an aspiring writer, is also gay. Or rather, he is in the midst of figuring that out about himself — what it means, how he might act on it — when his panicked parents enroll him in a conversion therapy program designed to change, or at least suppress, his sexuality. The film’s sensitivity, though it is an ethical strength, is also a dramatic limitation. “
Boy Erased” uses Jared’s story — which includes a high school attempt at heterosexual romance, a horrifying campus sexual assault and a chaste night spent in the bed of another man — primarily as a window into the issues raised by
Garrard Conley’s book. [
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| Théodore Pellerin, left, as Xavier and Lucas Hedges as Jared in “Boy Erased,” directed by Joel Edgerton. Credit: Focus Features |
