Praising Lucas Hedges in Boy Erased and Mid90s

A Lucas Hedges Triple Play

          Two young actors have emerged recently as among the most promising male talents of their generation.  Both already have Oscar nominations: Timothée Chalamet in 2018 for a lead role in Call Me By Your Name; Lucas Hedges in 2017 for a supporting role in Manchester By the Sea. Chalamet has earned praise for his latest role as a drug-addicted son in Beautiful Boy (see previous blog post on Toronto film festival selections).  Hedges appears in three current films.  The last to be released, Ben is Back, is also in the role of a drug-addicted son, and is helmed by his writer-director father Peter Hedges.  It opens December 7. Here are notes on the other two.  All were TIFF selections.

Boy Erased (U.S. http://www.focusfeatures.com/boy-erased)
          Australian actor-director Joel Edgerton helms this sobering true-story drama about the consequences of religious so-called “gay conversion” therapy programs.  He has enlisted Aussie A-listers Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman to play the evangelical parents of 18-year old Jared Eamons (Hedges), a religiously observant student wrestling with same-sex attraction. The setting is Bible belt Arkansas in which Marshall Crowe, a Baptist pastor, and wife Nancy sincerely believe they are helping their son by accepting the counsel of church elders to enroll him in such a program.  It’s done with his consent.  Jared wants to be “cured” of his latent homosexuality.  The screenplay by Garrard Conley draws on his eponymous memoir of that experience.

            The program Jared enters is run by Victor Sykes (Edgerton) who exudes evangelical zeal and psychological authority without having any real qualifications. Jared is troubled by dubious confessional exercises such as a “moral inventory”. He becomes increasingly disturbed when, for all the talk about God and “love”, confrontations lead to psychological and even physical abuse.  One even results in a suicide. (As a side note, among the inmates is a sullen character “Jon”, played by openly gay Quebec actor-director Xavier Dolan.) When Jared can no longer play along—“fake it to make it”—he appeals to his mom to take him out.  Fortunately she listens, expressing sympathy and regret.  Jared’s preacher dad takes longer to adjust to having a gay son. What is most assuring is that both parents never stop loving their son.  The movie closes with an honest heart-to-heart father-son talk as affecting as that celebrated in Call Me By Your Name.

            The harm done by “gay conversion” was also the subject of the more sharply political The Miseducation of Cameron Post, centred on a female subject, which received the U.S. dramatic grand jury prize at Sundance in January.  Boy Erased is as good.  Hedges, who got his Oscar nod for playing a macho teen juggling girlfriends, is also well cast here.  Indeed he has been open about his own “fluid” sexuality.  Noting that 36 states permit such “conversion” programs, the movie makes one reflect about the damage from the self-hatred inflicted on hundreds of thousands of vulnerable young people.  The kicker in Boy Erased is an endnote observing that the real Victor Sykes subsequently came out as gay and is living with his husband in Texas.  Perhaps one should not be surprised that religious hypocrisy is also part of this picture.  

A

  

Mid90s (U.S. http://www.mid90s.movie/)
            Lucas Hedges in the role of an older brother drew me to this film, the directorial debut of actor Jonah Hill who also wrote the screenplay. 

            The setting is the Los Angeles skateboard subculture, circa mid-90s, centred on a pint-sized 13-year old kid Stevie (Sunny Suljit) who wants to hang out with a crowd of older skater dudes pretending to be as tough and cool.  It’s a loudmouthed gang of characters, with the show- off casual profanity and stupidity of restless adolescent males. Stevie’s single mom (Katherine Waterston) isn’t impressed.  Older bro Ian (Hedges) is more sullen and abusive than supportive, treating him like a nuisance.  Stevie’s pals may call him “Sunburn”, but the family dynamics are less than sunny to say the least. If this is a nostalgia trip, it’s not a heartwarming one.  Still Suljit gives the character of Stevie a plucky presence that impresses, and Hedges makes the most of an uncongenial supporting role as the unhappy Ian.

B