Director Desiree Akhavan handles the issue of gay conversion therapy with both sensitive subtlety and masterful assurance.
Conversion therapy has never been a more pressing issue. Here in the UK, a recent survey found that 5% of LGBT people had been offered conversion therapy, with 2% having actually undergone it, and pressure’s mounting for it to be outlawed. Over in the US, the California Senate have just this week passed a bill declaring it a fraudulent practice.
It is clearly still a reality for many LGBT+ individuals today, which makes it a very sensitive and personal issue for queer people. The Miseducation of Cameron Post was under immense pressure to deliver a sensitive and informed depiction of this very particular experience, and deliver it did.
Telling the story of Cameron Post, we meet her as she is being sent off to conversion centre God’s Promise after being caught sleeping with a girl in the back seat of a car on prom night. The straight world that she was navigating is obscured and made absurd, pressing at the fragile nature of Middle America’s obsession with reinforcing their notions of normality. Parents thrust their daughters into the arms of men, paint them up like beauty queens, and shove cameras in their faces.
At the therapy centre, Cameron (Chloë Grace Moretz) tries to navigate her own forming identity in an environment that is politely hostile to the person she’s becoming. The patients are given an metaphorical “iceberg” and are asked to consider what lies beneath the surface of their same sex attraction i.e. strained parental relationships, or…too much sports. The loss of her old life and her family leaves her vulnerable, yet free to create familial bonds on her own terms. Resounding throughout is a clear sense of queer kinship and community which blossoms, despite an overwhelming pressure to resist the urge to bond.
This film’s release also coincides with another emerging discussion regarding the casting of non-queer people as queer characters. Both Disney and Jack Whitehall were lampooned after it was announced that he would play an effete gay man in one of their upcoming productions. Moretz is not herself a queer woman, but as Cameron, Moretz has strength yet is frail, shrouding herself in oversized hoodies for protection. The performance is one that rings authentic.
Too often are queer issues clumsily thrust on screen by way of a gay white cis-gendered male couple. This feature is a breath of fresh inclusive air. We’re introduced to the broad spectrum of individuals who are forced into these facilities, from transgender people to disabled queer women to those with a culturally specific gender identity. Also, too often are queer issues on screen under the direction of straight men, but it’s clear that under the guidance of writer/director Desiree Akhavan, a queer woman, there is an authenticity to the stories portrayed. Tender and delicate, there is very little that isn’t obscured or made a little complicated by this intricate story.
Too easily could the workers at God’s Promise be vilified for the damage they’re inflicting on these kids, but they too have their own demons to grapple with. Jennifer Ehle’s portrayal of the diabolically sincere Dr Lydia March is transcendent, skilfully toeing the line between comforting matriarch and ruthless abuser. There is a healthy helping of sympathy dosed for each character we encounter, and no matter how dismal this world of queer-oppression becomes there is somehow always a flicker of understated humour with shaming Cameron for finding another girl attractive turning into a discussion about cannibalism.
Sure to be a breakout work for Akhavan, she delivers something that feels both long overdue yet invigorating. Much like the icebergs the patents are forced to fill out at God’s Promise, The Miseducation of Cameron Post gives its audience the apex of this complicated issue, gesturing to the intricacies at work under the surface.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post is out on the 7th of September.
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