A troop of Australian actors are bringing to life one of the year's most anticipated LGBTIQ+ films.
Based on writer Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir of the same name, Joel Edgerton's film adaptation of Boy Erased explores the implications of 'gay conversion' therapy and living as a gay man within a religious family.
“The film satisfies the dramatic and salacious stuff that interested me, but it also had an emotional resonance to it that I felt didn’t just make it a dark and nihilistic story,” Edgerton said in an interview with .
He added: “Garrard’s story is so full of redemption.”
"My approach and treatment of this story was that there were no villains, that everyone thought they were doing the right thing," he said.
The film also stars Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe as Conley's Baptist parents, as well as Lucas Hedges, who recently appeared in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Lady Bird.
"The way in which she and her husband feel about putting [Garrard] into conversion therapy, I wanted that to come from a place of a mother thinking it’s the right thing to do," Kidman said.
She continued: "Nothing that she did was vindictive, which is probably why they have such a strong relationship now."
The film, which is due for release in September, is already drumming up some early Oscars buzz and co-stars Australian pop star Troye Sivan and Canadian actor/filmmaker Xavier Dolan in supporting roles.
