The Miseducation of Cameron Post
It seems that, as far as I can tell, people will never get sick of coming of age stories. Whether it’s about high schoolers dealing with their peers and their thoughts about the future, kids going on a road trip to see a dead body out of curiosity, or a bunch of outcasts trying to enjoy living in a small town, coming of age stories work best when a story feels so unique yet broad enough that anyone can relate to the characters regardless of their similarities or differences. For a modern example, it’s one of the reasons why Kayla from Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” is such a great character even if you were never a teenage girl. Surprisingly though, there’s another niche in this subgenre which involves teenagers coming to terms with themselves and their sexuality...while being forced to attend a gay conversion camp. Two films are tackling this topic in different ways: Joel Edgerton’s “Boy Erased” and Desiree Akhavan’s “The Miseducation of Cameron Post.” While I can’t speak about Edgerton’s take on the topic just yet, Akhavan’s film definitely shows the potential of such a story.
“The Miseducation of Cameron Post” follows Chloë Grace Moretz as Cameron Post, a religious teenager who gets caught having a secret relationship with a girl she goes to bible study with. Set in 1993, Post is forced to go to God’s Promise, a camp built specifically to “fix” teenagers who believe they are gay. The camp is led by Reverend Rick (John Gallagher Jr.) and Dr. Linda Marsh (Jennifer Ehle), a brother and sister duo that have had their own personal ties to the conversion therapy as Linda is the one who helped Rick “deal” with his own homosexuality. While Post is having difficulty believing in the methods, she ends up befriending two outsiders at the camp (Sasha Lane’s Jane Fonda and Forrest Goodluck’s Adam) that may end up giving her the courage to truly find out what she wants in life.
Speaking of the film’s premise, it is one of the strongest elements of the film. Putting confused and emotional teenagers all in one place while telling them that what they’re feeling is “not God’s way” leads to some very interesting discussions about religion, sexuality, the relationship between the two, and even how we see ourselves. There’s even a great scene where Cameron flat out says that she doesn’t see herself as a lesbian, feeling less like she’s lying to the staff and more like she’s saying that she is more than just a term. She’s a complicated human being and the film does a great job of having a camp that is filled with characters that feel real. It even does a good job of grounding the gay conversion camp itself, deciding to not villainize the people behind it but also not shying away from the horrible teachings they spread to these kids. It feels authentic and I was impressed by how well written and handled the entire story was.
It also helps that the cast is great. Chloë Grace Moretz does a great job as Cameron Post, Sasha Lane and Forrest Goodluck are enjoyable every time they’re on-screen, John Gallagher Jr. brings it to every scene he’s in, and Jennifer Ehle’s Lydia is well done without ever feeling inhuman or like a complete Nurse Ratched ripoff. Even the secondary characters get shining moments, going so far as surprising me when some of them even outshine Moretz at times. Everyone really captures their characters, leading to a film that just flies by when paired with the very interesting story. I wish I could leave it at that but, unfortunately, the film has two decently sized problems.
The first problem is the ending. It’s actually not a bad ending at all, perfectly capturing the naive yet admirable teenage mindset without ever feeling like the characters’ logic is flawed or weird. That being said though, it does feel like it ends a bit too early, fading to black when it feels like another 20 minutes could add something to Post as a character, her relationships, etc. Instead, we get a serviceable ending that makes you feel “Oh...it’s over? Okay.” rather than “Man...that was great.” I personally don’t need an ending that ties up every little loose end a film has brought up to that point. However, with this film, I do need a ending that doesn’t feel so open-ended, especially when looking at all the characters that don’t get satisfying ends to their arcs.
It’s with that discussion of the characters that leads me to my second problem: the film barely scratches the surface of some of its most interesting characters. After the film ended, I asked myself a question: what do I really know about Cameron Post? Sure, you discover that she’s a track star, lost her parents at a young age, her extensive relationship with the bible study girl, and her view on God. Other than that though, when I dug deep, I realized that I felt like I didn’t get to know Cameron all that well. I learned a lot of facts about her but besides that, I never emotionally connected with Cameron as a character because I never really got to see her home life, how the death of her parents really affected her, or what she might believe as to why she’s different from other people. I totally understood why she was emotionally distant at the beginning of the film but when it got down to the finale of the film, despite like two moments of honesty from her, it felt like she had barely changed from where she started.
That also goes for most of the characters in the film. Besides some background information during a strangely comedic scene, Jane Fonda is barely defined, Adam is given very little development despite what he’s gone through and the internal conflict dealing with his sexuality and his Native American heritage, and Reverend Rick feels a bit like a missed opportunity. Here is a character that is a “success story” when discussing gay conversion therapy yet it’s obvious that he’s still dealing with it when trying to help others get over their own homosexuality. The film even makes it pretty clear that while he started the camp with Lydia, they are on opposite spectrums in terms of dealing with the kids. Add the other secondary characters and you have a film that barely does anything with them. Of course, what’s written is really good and works well. It just feels like surface-level stuff when compared to the untapped potential of the scenario and the characters inhabiting it.
Despite my issues with the film though, I still believe that “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” is a great example of how you freshen up a subgenre. It’s a coming of age tale that uses the gay conversion camp angle to perfectly add conflict to the hormones and confusion of being a teenager, giving Chloë Grace Moretz and the rest of the great cast a chance to flex their talents. It isn’t without its flaws but, in the end, it overshadows many of them to create a well-made final product. While “Boy Erased” still has a few months before its release, I’m glad to say that “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” does a great job of getting me excited to see where this premise can go from here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEdngvMGjg0]