This starry second feature from Australian actor and film-maker Joel Edgerton tackles the topic of gay conversion therapy in the state of Arkansas. Based on the memoir of journalist Garrard Conley, Edgerton has assembled an impressive coterie of famous faces including Nicole Kidman, French-Canadian auteur Xavier Dolan and Australian pop star Troye Sivan but something is off. The film feels thin, drab and ultimately unable to harness the collective power of its otherwise talented cast.
Jared (Lucas Hedges) is a closeted college student and son of a firm but fair preacher (Russell Crowe, the best and most believable thing about the film). When Jared is raped by another male student, he receives the blame, with his parents refusing to hear the whole story and signing him up for a 12-day Christian gay conversion camp. Its villainous leader (played by Edgerton) is cartoonishly overdrawn, while the Jared character is underwritten and generically vulnerable. A scene in which he spends the night with a Viennese student he meets at an art show offers a tender thrill, but it feels like parody when Jared throws a rock at an advert depicting a shirtless male model.
