It was just a matter of time before Hollywood addressed the “ex-gay” experiences that writer Gerrard Conley endured growing up in a Christian Baptist family. Boy Erased, which is based on a memoir of the same name, is an intimate look at a world that is pretty much like you imagine it. Namely, dark, frustrating, torturous, abusive, and overall a reminder of the harm that fundamentalism usually provokes. The idea that gays, lesbians, transgender people, or bisexuals are able to be re-programmed like a buggy operating system has been panned by main-stream Psychology and Psychiatry as being rooted in misguided religious non-sense. And yet, as the film reminds us, there are 36 states that still allow this type of “therapy,” usually expensive, and always a harmful, many religions still condone the “god cures gay” message. The 700,000 reported cases of damage originating from these places is a stain on American Christianity in the same way that child sex abuses continues to taint Roman Catholicism. But beside the obvious unscientific premise of these types of conversion therapies, theres an underlying question that all queers across all religions have to confront at one point or another: Are my sexual proclivities and/or presentation of gender “sinful”?

In this film, the issue keeps coming up. These young queers enrolled in the conversion program are raised with the shame and the self-hate that the concept of sin always yields. But here’s the thing, sin is engrained in the fibers of Christianity’s inception and has been instrumental in the early propagation of religion in general. People who don’t ever struggle with sexual identity issues will never be able to fully grasp how the concept of sin exclusively harms LGBTQ populations because our sin has always been deemed as unforgivable unless we change. The vehicle that is used to hammer away at these young people in these centers, who are often-unwitting participants, is that morality and having same-sex inclinations are mutually exclusive. In other words, a person cannot uphold the morality established by the bible and be gay at the same time, and Boy Erased evokes the anxieties that young people in this situation suffer through convincingly. However, it doesn’t truly question the accepted convention that biblical canon is an effective blueprint for what society ought to consider as “moral”. Religious people often point to the 10 commandments as the gold-standard in theological moral thought. But there are way more than ten mandates written in those books that would horrify most people with empathy today. The stoning to death of those convicted of crimes is one example, the justification of slavery is another, and the open patronage of sectarian slaughter is another. “Well, that was just the social norms back then.” If that’s the case, should anyone be using the bible or similar texts as a framework for modern morality? This is a deeper issue that this film doesn’t entirely capture, and it definitely should be part of this specific conversation.

Spoilers Below

The language that is used to indoctrinate these kids, whom often have to choose between a roof over their head or conversion therapy, are words like “broken,” “mental illness,” “behavioral choice,” and “AIDS” that are familiar to us all and are on display in this film. Though the hero in this story ends up being the very parent that sent the child to conversion therapy, portrayed by Nicole Kidman, it reminds us that often these parents have good intentions. In her mind, she is doing what she feels is required of her as a Christian mother. Eventually, she sees that this is not the way to love a child. Lucas Hedges embodies the main character, Jared Eamons, in a sincere performance that encapsulates the conflicting adolescent urge to placate parents, fit in, and the burning desire to just be who you are. Sexual assault in these communities is portrayed in a derivative way that just didn’t ring true and seemed like the writing calling attention to itself. Is sexual assault cogent in this context? Of course, but the scene in question felt thrown together just for the sake of it, and didn’t really add to the urgency of the main plot. This may have been an attack that occurred in real life, but the dynamics of a situation like that felt glossed over somewhat by the production. Australian director/producer Joel Edgarton adapted the memoir and also portrays Victor Sykes, the gay conversion center’s main minister, who ironically currently lives with his husband in Long Island according to the film. Russel Crowe, Kidman, and Edgarton approach these roles with the utmost intensity. I don’t know if Russel Crowe has gone body-positive and just decided he wanted to be plus-size, but it felt like he put in loads of consideration to his role as the preacher father-figure in this movie. Paired with Nicole Kidman’s veracity as a submissive Christian mother who snaps out of it, further solidifies that both Kidman and Crowe are among some of the most versatile and intelligent actors around.

Boy Erased places the onus on the religious right to address the troubling “ex-gay” trends. A suicide by one of the “clients” of these ministries, who is subjected to a demon expulsion with bible-blows inflicted by his own family and community, shows that not everyone survives. Things seemed to end upbeat for the main character, though. His mother came around, his father came around, he lives with his husband. Which is a testament that for some, it does get better. But the overall statistics, which are presented in the closing of the film, suggests that the damage is more widespread than many imagine. I’m hopeful that those who have inflicted this type of pain, and the families that enabled this abuse will come to their senses. And I’m hopeful that some of the more egregious violations are given the legal attention that they deserve thanks to this film. “I didn’t know it was abuse, I thought I was helping” is not a valid excuse for any type of crime, and this should be no exception.