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Boy Erased Trailer: Joel Edgerton Runs a Conversion Therapy Program
Actor/director Joel Egerton brings Garrard Conley's memoir to cinematic life in the first trailer for his upcoming feature, Boy Erased. Lucas Hedges (Manchester By the Sea; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) stars in the film as Garrard Conley, who is nineteen when he is outed to his small town parents, including his Baptist pastor father Marshall (Russell Crowe) and mother Nancy (Nicole Kidman). Garrard is then pressured into attending a conversion therapy program run by one Victor Sykes (Edgerton).
Boy Erased marks Edgerton's second time calling the shots on a feature following his critically acclaimed debut on Blumhouse's dramatic thriller, The Gift, in 2015. However, Edgerton had already started to become more creatively involved behind the camera prior to that, and even cowrote such genre films as the Australian crime/thriller The Rover and western Jane Got a Gun (which he also costarred in). He takes another step forward with his latest offering - which, judging by the trailer, could be a proper Oscar contender, come awards season.
The film's cast is further rounded out by such names as Madelyn Cline (Stranger Things, Vice Principals), who plays Garrard's girlfriend Chloe at the time he's discovering the truth about his sexuality, and Théodore Pellerin as Xavier, another member of Sykes' program. Focus Features' Boy Erased trailer introduces most of these main players in the story and establishes the intense tone of Edgerton's film, in the process of doing so. You can watch said preview in the space above, then check out the Boy Erased poster below.
Edgerton's previous experience directing character-focused thrillers is serving his efforts on Boy Erased well, judging by the footage unveiled thus far. The film is further served by the great talent involved on both sides of the camera, with Hedges in particular poised to deliver another heart-breaking turn portraying the "Boy" himself. Cinematographer Eduard Grau seems equally comfortable operating in familiar territory here, after his work on Tom Ford's Oscar-nominated LGBTQ+ period drama, A Single Man.
Scheduled to arrive at the beginning of November, Boy Erased will start off in limited release and gradually expand to more markets as the end-of-year awards season race heats up. It won't be hurting for competition in that race either, what with films like the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody and Steve McQueen's Widows also launching that month alone. Conley's story is certainly an important one that deserves to be heard, so here's to hoping that Edgerton not only does justice by it, but that Boy Erased gets the attention it deserves, in turn.
