Our perception of what it means to be tolerant has thankfully evolved over the years. Mostly for the better. Simply judging by how our media now ‘understands’ institutions as heinous as gay conversion therapy camps is evocative of how the conversation’s improved. Thus enters Chloë Grace Moretz’s The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, a movie set in a much less tolerant 1993.
Depicting the confusing odyssey inflicted upon a teenage girl who was caught having a lesbian relationship with her best friend by her disapproving evangelical family, The Miseducation Of Cameron Post follows the titular character as she is forced into joining a “pray the gay away” camp ruled over with an iron fist by a smiling and malevolent Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle). Ehle’s psychologist seeks to prove that each boy and girl’s “perversion” in her camp stems from a childhood disorder that can be corrected. The movie does not hide that this is a form of Hell.
Even so, director Desiree Akhavan’s Cameron Post becomes a most unconventional telling of a most conventional experience: coming of age. Following Moretz’s heroine and a number of friends and acquaintances who acquiesce to the program, or don’t, the film features among its impressive cast John Gallagher Jr., Sasha Lane, Forrest Goodluck, and Quinn Shephard.
You can watch the trailer for the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury prize winner below.
The film arrives in the UK on Friday 31st August.