The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)

This was one that never came to my area.  I’d had it on my list as one I’d wanted to see but kind of forgot about it until Oscar season, and I had just enough room in my movie schedule to fit it into my Tour of 2018 viewing.

In 1993, Cameron is caught hooking up with another girl at homecoming, and she’s quickly sent to God’s Promise, a center for conversion therapy.  As she starts getting to know the other teens there, some of whom desperately want to be “cured,” some of whom want nothing to do with it, she struggles with the things the staff want her to believe about herself.

This the third movie I’ve seen about conversion therapy.  While But I’m a Cheerleader is a satire and Boy Erased is a serious drama, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is something of a coming-of-age tale.  It presents the “lessons” of God’s Promise in a matter-of-fact way, allowing their twisted nature to speak for themselves without belaboring how messed up it all is.  I like that, even though it doesn’t get into things like electroshock or physical abuse, it still demonstrates how harmful it is for these kids to be fed these ideas and urged to internalize them.  The program here may be “mild” compared to how bad it could’ve been, but that doesn’t make it any less psychologically damaging.  Similarly, you get the sense that the leaders of the center, Dr. Lydia and her “ex-gay” brother Reverend Rick, have a genuine desire to help these kids, and Rick is even really nice and encouraging.  There’s no prevailing air of them wanting to browbeat the gay out of the kids, and they seem to think their “therapy” is in the kids’ best interest, even though it very obviously isn’t.

One of the strengths of the film is that, while it’s very definitely Cameron’s story, it also spends quite a bit of time with the other kids in the program, and we see a variety responses to what’s happening to them.  There are the rebellious resisters, Jane and Adam, who make up the answers they know Lydia and Rick want to hear, grow weed on the downlow, and try to stay sane by mocking how pointless the “therapy” is in private.  Then there are kids like Erin and Helen, who are anxious to “get better” and are always striving to lead “purer” lives, and seeming “success stories” like Mark, who’s devout and often sanguine about his efforts to overcome his “sin” (I think I’ve used more quotation marks in this post than any I’ve ever written.)

I do have to point out one disappointing aspect, in that the cast isn’t quite as diverse as the characters they’re playing.  Jane has a prosthetic leg, but I found no evidence online that the actress playing her does, and Adam is a Two Spirit character played by a cisgender male.  Neither is particularly surprising among current Hollywood casting practices, but it’s still frustrating to see.

Good cast all around.  All the young actors, led by Chloë Grace Moretz as Cameron, turn in understated but effective work; besides Moretz (Hit-Girl!), I recognize Forrest Goodluck, who was in The Revenant, and Emily Skeggs, Medium Alison from Fun Home.  As for the adults, Jennifer Ehle (Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself) and John Gallagher Jr. (Moritz from Spring Awakening) are both excellent as Lydia and Rick.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including references to self-harm,) sexual content, language, and drug use.