Boy Erased

Boy Erased is careful to humanise Jared's parents as loving, but wrongheaded. If anything, it's too respectful of their damaging views.

I applaud the message of the film.

The film feels thin, drab and ultimately unable to harness the collective power of its otherwise talented cast.

The whole endeavour sits meekly in the shadow of last year's brilliant conversion-camp drama The Miseducation of Cameron Post.

Boy Erased could have been more sharply etched, all told - there's something naggingly indistinct about it. But the lessons of Conley's experience fight manfully, all the same, to punch through and be counted.

Worthy theme and willing creators. But for whatever reason, Boy Erased never rubs its story potential the right way.

Boy Erased scans as, and turns out to be precisely, textbook Oscar-bait: it’s topical, its heart is in the right place, the cast is stacked, and despite all good intentions the final effect is very meh (“powerful” is a word I expect to see used a lot).

A deft touch is brought to a delicate subject matter that downplays rather than heightens, even as harrowing as scenes can be.

Boy Erased, though predictably made, tells a harrowing story with great empathy for Jared and his family.

This is a tightly wound drama that packs an emotional punch. As movies about institutionalised abuse, this is up there with One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.