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Boy Erased

2018 film directed by Joel Edgerton

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ39659543 ↗
Source-derived summary

Boy Erased is a 2018 biographical drama film based on Garrard Conley's 2016 memoir. It was written and directed by Joel Edgerton, who also produced with Kerry Kohansky Roberts and Steve Golin. The film stars Lucas Hedges as Jared Eamons, a fictionalized version of Conley, the closeted gay son of Baptist parents (portrayed by Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe), who is forced to take part in a conversion therapy program. Edgerton, Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones, and Flea also appear in supporting roles.

Boy Erased premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2018, and also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film was theatrically released in the United States on November 2, 2018, by Focus Features and grossed over $12 million worldwide. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised the performances of the cast, and received various award nominations, including two Golden Globe Award nominations: Best Actor for Hedges and Best Original Song for "Revelation". The film won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Limited Release at the 30th GLAAD Media Awards.

Plot

Jared Eamons is the son of Marshall Eamons, a car dealer and Baptist preacher in Arkansas, and Nancy Eamons, a hairdresser. He begins his first day at the Love in Action gay conversion therapy assessment program in Memphis, Tennessee.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Boy Erased” as 2018 film directed by Joel Edgerton. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Erased, film and directed.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2018, 2016—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2018-09-01, 2018-11-02, 2019-02-08, 2019-02-21—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Erased, film and directed providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Boy Erased”, the useful work is to connect “2018 film directed by Joel Edgerton” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q39659543. VIAF identifies the subject as 5411154801952256310009. 2 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 6 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018 and 2016.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Boy Erased”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Boy Erased primary sources, Boy Erased archive and Erased research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Boy Erased”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Boy Erased” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.