7 | / 10 |
Users | 5.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The son of a baptist preacher is forced to participate in a church-supported gay conversion program.
Starring: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton, Joe Alwyn, Xavier DolanBiography | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French (Canada): DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There's a popular aphorism that is often touted by some genuinely religious folks that states "God doesn't make mistakes". Yet there can also be something of a disconnect between that belief and a simultaneously held opinion by these same people that other created beings need to be taken to task for not toeing whatever line the believers think needs to be toed, an insistence on change that perhaps has the subliminal implication that whatever is wrong is not the fault of any Divinity, but indeed of an extremely fallible human. That insistence on “right” behavior is probably nowhere more intense than in matters of sexuality, and Boy Erased is a well intentioned if perhaps too rote exploration of so-called “gay conversion therapy”, a technique (or set of techniques) that has become increasingly controversial in the wake of several “defections” from its ranks by its practitioners, not to mention even more horrifying after effects like the suicides of some people, typically teens, that are forced to go through it, usually by their concerned parents. (Just a day before I wrote this review, my news feed contained an article about a former gay conversion therapist who had been married — to a woman — for decades, but who had just decided to come out as gay himself.) There's no such ambiguity in Boy Erased, a heartfelt film culled from a real life memoir written by Garrard Conley, as the film is resolutely anti-conversion therapy. One of the kind of interesting things about this cinematic adaptation, though, is that all of the names of the real life participants have been changed, in this case perhaps (to paraphrase the old line from Dragnet) to protect the guilty as well as the innocent.
Boy Erased is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Studios with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is a rather interesting film from a stylistic standpoint, which is not to say it ever achieves anything close to a "wow" factor visually. In fact, cinematographer Eduard Grau talks overtly about how "ugly" locations are in the film in an a worthwhile interview I found you can listen to here. There's also a rundown on this film's kind of unusual gambit of combining actual film with digital in this article. The article linked to also includes a telling quote from Grau where he says the use of Zeiss lenses helped with both a pastel appearance and "the softness of the images", and as can hopefully be gleaned from many of the screenshots accompanying this review, there is a hazy, almost weirdly dreamlike ambience to much of the imagery, where use of any bold primaries is fleeting at best. A lot of the film also takes place in fairly dimly lit environments, and as such the palette tends to look downright drab some of the time, though many interior scenes look like they've been graded slightly toward almost a beige or brown side of things, something that may only further amplify the "ugliness" (to use Grau's terminology) of some of the imagery.
Boy Erased features a serviceable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which provides some decent surround activity with regard to an often quite touching score (including some nice source cues), and occasionally with ambient environmental sounds when the film ventures outside. Even some of the more straight ahead dialogue scenes have noticeable spaciousness and immersion in scenes where a bunch of characters are gathered together for various "therapy" sessions. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.
Boy Erased doesn't really pull any punches with regard to its anti-gay conversion therapy standpoint, but in a number of other ways, the film is commendably nuanced and multifaceted. All three of the Eamons characters feel real and properly uncertain about how to deal with various situations. Kind of ironically given the fact that Edgerton wrote and directed the film, it's his character of Victor Sykes that could have used a bit more development, especially given hints that are dropped about him which are more or less confirmed in a couple of text cards at the end of the film documenting what happened to various characters. This is a tough film to watch at times, but it offers some excellent performances and a thoughtful survey of how a kid coming out (whether or not by force is another matter) affects a family. Technical merits are solid, and Boy Erased comes Recommended.
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