Boy Erased
for sexual content including an assault, some language and brief drug use.
| Moral Rating: | Not Recommended |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
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| Primary Audience: | Adults |
| Genre: | Drama Adaptation |
| Length: | 1 hr. 54 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2018 |
| USA Release: |
September 1, 2018 (festival) November 2, 2018 (5 select theaters) November 9, 2018 (77 theaters) November 16, 2018 (wide—656 theaters) DVD: January 29, 2019 |
What is Christian LOVE? Answer
HYPOCRISY IN THE CHURCH — “I would never be a Christian; they’re a bunch of hypocrites.”
What is SIN AND WICKEDNESS? Is it just “bad people” that are sinners, or are YOU a sinner? Answer
Are you good enough to get to Heaven? Answer
How good is good enough? Answer
Homosexual rapes
What is SEXUAL IMMORALITY? Answer
SEXUAL LUST—Why does God strongly warn us about it? Answer
GAY—What’s wrong with being Gay? Answer
Homosexual behavior versus the Bible: Are people born Gay? Does homosexuality harm anyone? Is it anyone’s business? Are homosexual and heterosexual relationships equally valid?
What about Gays needs to change? Answer
It may not be what you think.
Read stories about those who have struggled with homosexuality
| Featuring |
Lucas Hedges … Jared Eamons—based on Garrard Conley Nicole Kidman … Nancy Eamons Russell Crowe … Marshall Eamons Cherry Jones … Dr. Muldoon Madelyn Cline … Chloe Flea … Brandon Victor McCay … Aaron David Joseph Craig … Michael Troye Sivan … Gary See all » |
| Director | Joel Edgerton — “The Gift” (2015) |
| Producer |
Anonymous Content Blue-Tongue Films [Australia] See all » |
| Distributor |
 Focus Features, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal/Comcast |
an agenda-driven Gay advocacy drama that mostly portrays Bible-believing Christians as homophobic, cruel, dangerous, and evil
Film description from Wikipedia and iMDb: “Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges) is the son of Marshall Eamons (Russell Crowe), a successful car dealer and Baptist preacher, and Nancy Eamons (Nicole Kidman), a self-styled hairdresser. The film begins with Jared entering into his first day at the Love In Action gay conversion therapy program. Chief therapist Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton) tells the group that their sexuality is a choice influenced by poor parenting. He instructs them to perform harsh ‘moral inventories’ of themselves and their families and requires them not to tell anyone else of what occurs in the sessions.
Nancy rents a nearby motel for her and Jared to stay in until he completes the program; however, Jared soon discovers that the therapy has no set end point and may require him to move into an on-campus home if he fails to convince Sykes that he has become straight.
Flashbacks reveal how Jared became enrolled in the program. Jared leads a well-adjusted and happy life through high school, though he breaks up with his girlfriend upon starting college. Once there, he becomes friends with another student, Henry (Joe Alwyn), and has a brief intimate encounter with an art student, Xavier (Théodore Pellerin).
While staying the night in Jared’s dorm, Henry rapes Jared and tearfully confesses that he has done the same to another young man. Traumatized, Jared returns home to recover. Henry calls the Eamons” home and poses as a school counselor in order to out Jared and ensure his silence. Jared confesses to being attracted to men. After consulting with other pastors, Marshall signs him up for conversion therapy, to which Jared reluctantly agrees.
Weeks into his therapy, Jared gets to know the other attendees also seeking to become straight. Some, like Jon (Xavier Dolan), are fanatically devoted to conversion to the point where they refuse to even touch other men. Others, like Gary (Troye Sivan), are merely ‘playing the part,’ pretending that the therapy is working until they can be released and return to a normal life.
At her insistence, Jared lets Nancy read the program’s handbook, which is full of questionable psychology and obvious grammatical errors. After failing an exercise, attendee Cameron (Britton Sear) is humiliated by Sykes in front of the group and intimidated with a fake funeral service. Cameron is then beaten with Bibles by both the therapists and his own family and forcibly dunked in a bathtub in one of the program’s prison-like homes.
Jared challenges Sykes when the latter suggests during an exercise that Jared hates his father. He storms out of the room, successfully retrieves his phone, and calls Nancy to pick him up. Nancy removes Jared from the program and takes him home, horrified and ashamed that she allowed Marshall to enroll him in an unvetted program without researching its practices. Marshall remains furious about Jared dropping out of the program and refuses to speak with him. Soon after, Jared learns that Cameron committed suicide while still in the program’s care.
Four years later, Jared has moved to New York. He writes an article that exposes the realities of conversion therapy. Jared returns home to convince his father to read the article and take accountability for his actions. The two begin to reconcile.
An epilogue states that the leaders of many conversion therapy groups were fired in the wake of Jared’s memoir, although many therapy groups still remain active. Jared remains active for LGBTQ causes and is reconciled with his parents, while Sykes stepped down from Love In Action and married a man himself.”
This movie is adapted (with some added material) from the provocative memoir by Garrard Conley titled Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family (2016).
- Violence: • male rapes male • people use Bibles as clubs to beat a boy • lots of anger and confrontations
- Vulgar/Crude language: • f-words • s-words • f*ggot
- Profane language: • “d*mn it”
- Sex: • homosexual kissing • homosexual rape • sexual talk and descriptions • repeated discussions about homosexuality • girl and boy kissing, then her hands goes toward his crotch • discussion about unreasonableness of waiting until marriage to have sex • references to masturbation and pornography
- Nudity: • women shown in underwear • male upper body nudity
- Occult: None
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
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