Pray Away

“This film is ded­i­cat­ed to those who sur­vived con­ver­sion ther­a­py and espe­cial­ly those who didn’t,” reads one of the final title cards in Kris­tine Sto­lakis’ doc­u­men­tary Pray Away. The sen­ti­ment comes after 100 min­utes of chal­leng­ing but cru­cial view­ing that chron­i­cles the per­vad­ing influ­ence and harm­ful lega­cy of Exo­dus Inter­na­tion­al, an inter­de­nom­i­na­tion­al ex-gay organ­i­sa­tion that facil­i­tat­ed the largest ​‘gay cure’ con­ver­sion ther­a­py scheme in the world.

The sub­ject of con­ver­sion ther­a­py has been tack­led in nar­ra­tive film with Desiree Akhavan’s empow­er­ing The Mise­d­u­ca­tion of Cameron Post, Jamie Babbit’s satir­i­cal But I’m a Cheer­leader, and Joel Edgerton’s stir­ring Boy Erased. All dif­fer wide­ly in tone but are unequiv­o­cal­ly unit­ed in depict­ing the prac­tice as inhu­mane and abhor­rent. Sim­i­lar­ly, Pray Away does not debate the uneth­i­cal ​‘ther­a­py’, instead decon­struct­ing Exo­dus Inter­na­tion­al from the per­spec­tive of those who were on the inside and made it out.

With the doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er flour­ish of pre-inter­view footage, inter­vie­wees being mic’d up and shots framed for talk­ing heads, Pray Away intro­duces its sub­jects: five ex-founders of Exo­dus Inter­na­tion­al, a sur­vivor and a cur­rent mem­ber. With com­plete trans­paren­cy, the ex-founders detail the Evan­gel­i­cal church ​‘sup­port group’ that devel­oped into a con­ver­sion ther­a­py pro­gramme thou­sands would pass through, all while the founder’s gay desires remained shroud­ed in secrecy.

At once a sear­ing exposé and a soul-bear­ing con­fes­sion­al, par­tic­i­pants reflect on their expe­ri­ences with unflinch­ing hon­esty. Julie Rodgers, a sur­vivor who was indoc­tri­nat­ed at 16 and sub­ject­ed to years of insid­i­ous ​‘ther­a­py’, is the film’s most com­pelling speak­er. Her damn­ing mem­o­ries of her life at that time are inter­cut with footage of wed­ding prepa­ra­tions with her soon-to-be wife. Such a con­trast is present else­where, edi­tor Car­la Gutier­rez skil­ful­ly cut­ting between talk­ing heads to a wealth of archive TV interviews.

Hew­ing to a con­ven­tion­al form and struc­ture, Pray Away allows the audi­ence to focus ful­ly on the evoca­tive per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ny Sto­lakis assem­bles. It is tes­ta­ment to the director’s approach that the film’s non-judge­men­tal per­spec­tive man­ages to even stretch to Jef­frey McCall, a self-described ​“for­mer­ly trans­gen­der” per­son who start­ed a group devot­ed to ​‘save’ peo­ple from their LGBTQ+ lives. Sto­lakis’ lin­ger­ing, eeri­ly iso­lat­ed shot of him smil­ing as the film draws to a close is more pow­er­ful than an out­right comment.

Pray Away is impact­ful not just because of its con­tent, but the wider impli­ca­tions of unearthing the roots of this unholy pseu­do-sci­ence. In its final moments, the film presents the fact that LGBTQ+ youth who have expe­ri­enced con­ver­sion ther­a­py are more than twice as like­ly to attempt sui­cide. It’s clear that Sto­lakis hopes her film will linger beyond its run­time and con­tribute to the fight to end con­ver­sion ther­a­py, in all forms, forever.