Lucas Hedges Is Sent To Gay Conversion Therapy in ‘Boy Erased’ Trailer
Are you ready for Lady Bird’s boyfriends to lead this year’s awards season? Timothee Chalamet’s got his boyhood drama, Beautiful Boy, and Lucas Hedges has his with Boy Erased.
Based on the memoir by Garrard Connely, Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri star Hedges plays Jared, a gay 19-year-old who’s outed to his religious parents. His pastor father (Russell Crowe) and devout mother (Nicole Kidman) respond by sending him away to gay conversion therapy, run by a strict therapist, played by Joel Edgerton who also writes and directs.
This one’s been on my most-anticipated list for some time now, mostly because it’s an important story to tell, but also to finally see Hedges in a leading role. He was excellent as Kyle Chandler’s son in Manchester By the Sea, and did great work in Three Billboards and Lady Bird. Here’s the full synopsis:
Boy Erased tells the story of Jared (Hedges), the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who is outed to his parents (Kidman and Crowe) at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith. Boy Erased is the true story of one young man’s struggle to find himself while being forced to question every aspect of his identity.
The cast also includes Cherry Jones, Xavier Dolan (sporting a black eye in the trailer in one of two upcoming tragic queer roles), musician Troye Sivan, and Joe Alwyn. This one will surely make its debut on the fall festival circuit before it hits November 2. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get an awards season full of Saoirse Ronan (who’s got the Mary Queen of Scots) and her two Lady Bird BFs hanging out on red carpets.