Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman stoke Oscar fire in stirring Boy Erased trailer

The first trailer for awards season hopeful Boy Erased is highlighting the Oscar-primed acting chops of stars Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman.

The onscreen mother-son pair front actor Joel Edgerton’s second feature directorial effort, which follows 19-year-old Jared’s (Hedges) experience with religiously backed gay conversion therapy after he’s outed to his conservative Baptist parents Nancy (Kidman) and Pastor Marshall Eamons (Russell Crowe). With the threat of detachment from his family and friends looming over his head, Jared succumbs to outside pressure urging him to alter his identity, a process which sees him clashing with the treatment center’s head therapist (Edgerton).

“The film satisfies the dramatic and salacious stuff that interested me, but it also had an emotional resonance to it that I felt didn’t just make it a dark and nihilistic story. Jared’s story is so full of redemption,” Edgerton previously told EW of the project. Speaking about her character, Kidman added: “The way in which [Nancy] and her husband feel about putting [Jared] into conversion therapy, I wanted that to come from a place of a mother thinking it’s the right thing to do. Nothing that she did was vindictive, which is probably why they have such a strong relationship now.”

Based on Garrard Conley’s memoir of the same name and featuring an eclectic cast of actors (Cherry Jones, Joe Alwyn), filmmakers (Mommy director Xavier Dolan has a small part), and musicians (pop star Troye Sivan and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea appear as well), Boy Erased is expected to be a major player on the awards trail later this year — especially given the Oscar-verified talents of its cast (Kidman and Crowe are Oscar winners, while Hedges received a nod for his performance in Kenneth Lonergan’s 2016 film Manchester by the Sea).

Ahead of Boy Erased‘s Nov. 2 release date, it will likely pop up at one (or more) of the fall festivals closing out the year before an awards push from distributor Focus Features. Watch the film’s first full-length trailer above.