We may know Joel Edgerton for his powerful performances in everything from Animal Kingdom to Zero Dark Thirty, but we may be thinking of him as a director first pretty soon. Following on his surprise hit debut The Gift, Edgerton enters the awards season race with Boy Erased, a sobering drama led by three stars who are no strangers to this time of year: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe.
Edgerton’s film is based on Garrard Conley’s memoir and stars Hedges as a Jared Eamons, a young gay man whose conservative parents convince him to undergo conversion therapy where he can “choose” to be straight. Of course, Jared doesn’t quite take to the program which causes problems with the staff (of which Edgerton plays its leader) and forces his parents to make a choice of their own. Do they accept their son for who he is, or exile him from the family and community he knows?
As the shocking statistics at the end of the trailer explain, this remains a very real issue and Edgerton looks to be making a statement while offering solutions.
Boy Erased also stars Cherry Jones, Flea, Xavier Dolan, Joe Alwyn, and Troye Sivan, who contributed an original song which you can check out below. The film opens on November 2nd and will expand in the coming weeks.
