Review of Boy Erased (2018) by The3Academysins — 08 Dec 2018

In spite of powerful performances from Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Joel Edgerton, Boy Erased flounders with it's over padded and overly dramatic script. It's two hour run time feels like three and a half, thanks to many scenes that either don't go anywhere, or subvert Lucas Hedge's character's journey as opposed to highlighting it or world building.

While you wouldn't think that world building wouldn't be a necessity in a real-life drama, I found that a lot of the character motivations and behaviors were completely alien to me. Russel Crowe's character suffers the most from this, and you never really get inside his head. You also never understand why these gay conversion camps operate in the way that they do. As a result, a lot of scenes are frustrating, or overly talky, or take the cheap way out with an overly dramatic delivery of a line or development of a plot element we never see again. While there were many moments I enjoyed, there were an overwhelming amount of moments that I could have slept through and not missed anything in the movie.