Joel Edgerton must have some issues. The writer and director cast himself as the villain. This is no sympathetic villain either. I don't think he means to condone his character's behavior. Does he identify with the hack Christian therapist Victor Sykes? Overall, the movie is good. It exposes the truth about these "gay conversion retreats" for the child abuse they are; the Evangelical audience watches it for this purpose. But for audiences on the liberal coasts, it is more revelatory than expository. This is a whole Evangelical world so far from my own that I couldn't have fathomed. There are some very troubling scenes in this movie, absolutely appalling stuff. Maybe none more than the victim blaming and the disturbing rape that goes ignored. And it makes me dislike the movie to a degree, again even though Edgerton is not explicitly condoning it. That it goes unpunished and uncommented on, almost amounts to effectively condoning it.
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