BOY ERASED
Narrative Feature | 114 minutes

HIFF 2018

 

Directed by
Joel Edgerton

Produced by
Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, Steve Golin, Joel Edgerton

Written by
Joel Edgerton

Featuring
Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton, Russell Crowe, Troye Sivan

2018 | English | USA

As the son of a Baptist pastor growing up middle-class in the Arkansas suburbs, Jared (Academy Award® nominee Lucas Hedges) seems to be the model son of a loving family. Excelling in school and in a committed relationship, Jared’s heavily conditioned image is shattered when a friend outs him to his community, leading his parents (Academy Award® winners Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe) to send him to Refuge, a church program that aims to reinforce gender roles and heal those with the “disease” of homosexuality. Based on Garrard Conley’s memoir of the same name, director and co-star Joel Edgerton delivers a refreshingly empathetic take on the difficulty of retaining a sense of one’s self in a circumstance that aims to erase it.