"THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST" // TRIBECA 2018 REVIEW
Conversion Therapy is an awful and troubling thing. If you’re not aware of what it is, I’ll enlighten you. According to Wikipedia, Conversion Therapy “is the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual using psychological or spiritual interventions.” In other words, it’s therapy to help you stop being gay and become straight, like it was apparently intended. The heartbreaking and devastating repercussions of this kind of thinking is mind boggling. The majority of clinics that do such a thing do it under the guise of a fundamentalist Christian group, who justify their view on homosexuality with religion, cherry picked for their own beliefs. THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST dives into that world and follows a group who are put into a conversation center themselves, with their parents believe their homosexual urges can be cured.
Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) is caught having sex with a female friend of hers on the night of her Prom. Her legal guardian, who’s evangelical herself, immediately sends her off to be “reformed,” sending her to “God’s Promise.” The center is run by a brother and a sister, Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) and Reverend Rick (John Gallagher Jr). Rick himself claims to be successfully treated and only wishes the young students can experience life the way he did. But underneath the good will that is on the surface lies uncomfortable blindness to what they are actually doing. The film is clearly on the side of the teens, but intriguingly, it also humanizes Rick, showing his pain and confusion, especially after Cameron enters the fray. He seems lost, just like all of us, and unaware of the horror he’s spreading.
His sister is a much tougher character to swallow. She reminds me of a stern Catholic school teacher in the kind who would shave off someone’s hair because they didn’t approve of long hair (which Lydia does to a poor student of hers). She’s intent on putting her ideology into the minds of the students, unaware of the self-hatred that she’s actually installing. All of their methods have the opposite effect, but they are too shamed themselves to see what they are actually doing. With Cameron, she finally finds a community there who understand her, other outcasts who have been sent for the same reasons she has and all want to be anywhere else but there. Even as they are being taught to hate the feelings inside of her, the strength the group give each other makes it possible for them to find new layers within themselves, and helps them truly find who they are, not who the center wants them to be. It’s a film that’s full of heartbreak and pain, but also a real sense of compassion and love, not to mention a good amount of humor. It’s complex and warm, and it’s one of the strongest films I’ve seen during the festival.
