“Would you let drug addicts throw parades for themselves?” asks a gay-conversion-camp counselor in “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” a terrific new movie about an important issue. Her bludgeoned point is that homosexuality and substance abuse are both, in the counselor’s (Jennifer Ehle) mind, equally controllable sins. “No . . . No, you wouldn’t,” replies Cameron, a clever teen girl played by Chloë Grace Moretz.
It’s a very funny moment in a movie that you’d expect to have exactly zero funny moments. Gay-conversion therapy, of course, is a serious, ongoing political hot button.
But I was surprised to find “Cameron Post” a sweet indie film in the tradition of John Hughes. Calmly directed by Desiree Akhavan, the movie doesn’t get tangled in the weeds of politics, but instead focuses intensely on its lovely characters.
Those special people — the campers and counselors, too — don’t wail in agony, or speechify about the system. Their dialogue is filled with dry humor, the film’s color palette is warm and, unlike the Montana camp where it’s set, there’s no preachiness here.
After Cameron is caught making out with a girl in the high school parking lot, her aunt ships her off to God’s Promise, a Christian pray-the-gay-away camp that teaches that same-sex attraction is like an iceberg — most of their sexuality issues exist below the surface. Kids even have to fill out iceberg coloring sheets with possible causes, such as “sports” or “too much attention from Mom.”
The camp’s uniform-clad group is a mix of young people earnestly, devastatingly trying to change themselves, and rebels who know that it’s all a bunch of BS. Cameron lands with a couple of the latter (Sasha Lane and Forrest Goodluck) and tries to make the best of her situation through friendship. That, she figures, is something she can control.
This is Moretz’s best performance yet. The small scale of the film emphasizes her subtle choices, and she manages to be sad but not pitiable. It’s a deft balance. A supporting performance — but the movie’s heftiest — is Owen Campbell as Mark, a charismatic boy at Promise. The guy seems like he’s got everything going for him, but it’s Mark who reveals the real consequences of places like these.
