★★★★

Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased isn't always the easiest to watch - it often deals with pretty heavy subject matter, but the film is ultimately a rewarding one. Lucas Hedges gives what is easily his best performance yet as a Jared, a young boy sent to gay conversion therapy by his parents. Every complex and complicated emotion comes through in his facial expressions, and it is truly a marvel to watch. The film has a handful of scenes that are not easy to digest, and my major complaint would be that they aren't always handled with the delicacy needed for the brutal nature of their subject matter. Troye Sivan and Xavier Dolan are solid in their performances as fellow participants in the therapy program, and Nicole Kidman is Oscar-bound with her performance as Jared's mother (and her character arc is quite an impressive one). Whereas some of this year's other inspirational true-story film entries haven't quite hit their desired emotional tone spot-on in the way I'd hoped they would, something about Boy Erased resonated with me far more deeply than most other films this year have, and consistently had me in tears until the final credits rolled.