‘Boy Erased’ Trailer: Family Ties Tug Hardest At Heart Of Conversion-Therapy Drama

Ahead of its platform release Friday comes a new trailer for Focus Features’ Boy Erased, the drama written and directed by Joel Edgerton based on Garrard Conley’s memoir about coming out to his Southern Baptist parents who sent him to conversion-therapy camp. Lucas Hedges stars alongside Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe in the pic, which has been building up steam since its fall-festival debut at Telluride, then Toronto.

Hedges plays Jared Eamons, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who must overcome the fallout of being outed to his parents, who struggle with reconciling their love for their son with their beliefs. Fearing a loss of family, friends, and community, Jared is pressured into attending a conversion therapy program. While there, Jared comes into conflict with its leader (Edgerton) and begins his journey to finding his own voice and accepting his true self.

Cherry Jones, Flea, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan, Joe Alwyn, Emily Hinkler, Jesse LaTourette, David Joseph Craig, Théodore Pellerin, Madelyn Cline and Britton Sear co-star. Steve Golin, Kerry Kohansky-Roberts and Edgerton are producers.

Edgerton told Deadline in Toronto that his aim was to “share the movie with as many people as possible” who still believe in the controversial practice of conversion therapy. “It offers an empathetic point of view of the people running intuitions like that,” he said. “I don’t think people wake up in the morning and go, ‘Right, I’m going to mess up some more kids.’ ”

The new trailer, released today, includes in its final frames a website tied to the film that includes resources to protect LGBQT youth from conversion practices.

Check out the trailer above.