Coming off a Tribeca Film Festival Best Documentary Feature nomination in 2020, director Kristine Stolakis’ Pray Away has quickly become the definitive film on the dangerous and phony religious practice of attempting to “cure” people of being gay.
While it doesn’t catalog the (many) suicides subsequent to immersions in anti-gay “conversion therapy,” Pray Away doesn’t shy away from showing the pain and damage done by the arrogant leaders of these misconceived programs.
The historical and ever-draped veil of the church facilitates all kinds of abuse, of course. Through Stolakis’ focus on the Orlando-based, Christian interdenominational entity branded Exodus International, we see pastors and other congregation members practicing psychology—more accurately pseudo-psychology—without licenses or training. Their motivations are older than scripture: money, power, and sex.
Access-wise, the filmmakers impress with interviews of six former Exodus executives. All have renounced their former organization and its practices. Their voices convey the fascinating dynamics by which they went from passionately promoting conversion therapy to adamantly advocating against it.
The documentarian’s strategy of building the film around the half-dozen ex-Exodus leaders is a wise one. What else could set the two sides in contrast clearer than the stories of those who have converted away from conversion?
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