Sebastian

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

"Sebastian" is a strange movie as the concept about a queer writer living a double life as a sex worker is pretty bizarre, yet, an interesting concept. This movie has left me with some mixed feelings as I find the movie to have some really strong moments but some not so strong.

Finnish-British Filmmaker Mikko Makela direction and writing for this story is pretty good as Makela's approach on the themes and characters are strong. Queer cinema hasn't been approached with this form of atmosphere and it was interesting to see Makela taking a new approach on queer cinema with good performances from the cast members, interesting conversations, and challenging aspects on the setting, tone, and character. The production design is good and camerawork was solid.

The dialogue is interesting as there are some really great dialogue moments but at the same time, some of the dialogue felt clunky and weird. Whether it was intentional or not, it feels a little off-putting. The characters have some investment but as the movie continues, the main character becomes a little difficult to fully connect with and it does cause the movie to feel a little of a drag.

The third act does fall apart a little as it feels unsatisfying to the climax. But despite it's flaws, I still found myself interested to see what happens next and I am glad I saw it. As much I wasn't very big on it, I applaud for the new take.

Max is a 25-year-old aspiring writer living in London. Alongside his journalist job, he works on his first novel, centered on gay male prostitution. Max finds his inspiration in an original way: he recounts his own experiences as an escort, under the alias of Sebastian. He is embodied on screen by Ruaridh Mollica, a charming and talented actor. Ruaridh perfectly conveys the inner complexity of his character. He is in almost every shot, including the numerous and graphic sex scenes that fortunately do not overpower the story. Writer-director Mikko Makela takes a non-judgmental approach to deal with topics such as the creative process, the world of escorts, self-discovery and self-acceptance. The images and colours are beautiful. The city, with its anonymity and loneliness, is a character in its own right. I found the movie interesting. It shows a raw side of current gay sexuality and correctly portrays a young artist in search of both success and identity.

Having never heard a single word about this, I thought I was going to see something trashy and lo and behold, it turns out I ended up viewing a good movie! Go figure! But seriously, while this has some imperfections, the quality here came as a great surprise. The writing, direction, cinematography and particularly the acting all have merits of varying degrees. A film about a smart young writer, successful at short stories, who decides to write a novel about gay sex workers and then decides to become one himself for authenticity only to become somewhat addicted to it all to the point that it is getting in the way of his writing about it. He hasn't the time for both! Ruaridh Mollica, who I never heard of prior to this, is really very good. His extremely bold performance is subtle, brave and he never really misses a beat. He's a bit mesmerizing. It would be cool to see how he is in other films, but that might be tricky here in America. All of the other actors are strong, particularly Jonathan Hyde, the only actor in this who might be familiar to the general American public. While he is good, his character's relationship with our young writer is problematic and where the film stumbles a bit. Mollica responds to him in very contradictory ways that are confusing. This has nothing to do with the acting. It's either the writing and/or the directing that falters here. This is not a great film, but it's really interesting film, though it is not for prudes. There are many sex scenes and one in particular is very explicit. It also has a truly lovely ending.

"Max" (Ruaridh Mollica) juggles a career as an aspiring journalist and novelist with charging £200 per hour selling his services as an escort to, mainly, older men. His boyish good looks and obvious inexperience at the latter makes him popular and he proves successful enough to use his varied experiences to form the basis of his book. His publisher likes the freshness and intimacy of the adventures of "Sebastian" but a rather self-induced setback at work forces a change to the dynamic of both his life and his work. Though there is the odd sex scene to enliven the drama, the rest of this is all a rather shallow investigation of the high-end comfort market and whilst Mollica is easy enough on the eye his performance over-relies on that and is quite lacklustre. The story itself has quite a few gaps that don't quite add up; timelines don't quite track and by the conclusion I actually thought that instead of offering us some sort of critical observation of an industry that transcends just about every aspect of society, we ended up with more of a rather exploitative - cruel, even, character about whom I really didn't care so much after a while. Jonathan Hyde brings a bit of (rather sad) nuance to the proceedings but Ingvar Sigurdsson's "Daniel" seemed just to Jekkyl and Hyde to be plausible at quite a crucial juncture in the young man's increasingly light-weight story. Rather than a movie, this might have made for a better three-part drama that could have focussed a little more cohesively on the aspects of his life, love and self-evaluation but as it is, it's all too bitty. Worth a watch, but not what it could have been.

Despite the film's confident naturalism, it seems less intimate as it goes on, with Max somehow growing more distant and generic as he becomes more comfortable in his own skin.

Synopsis: Max (Ruaridh Mollica) is a 25-year-old aspiring novelist, living in London and paying his dues working at a literary magazine. Frustrated by his own ambitions and the pressures to succeed, Max begins moonlighting as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, secretly meeting men via an escorting platform and using his experiences to fuel his stories. What begins as a few furtive meetings soon becomes a hidden nocturnal life, and the debut novel that he has been longing to write finally seems within reach. Finding himself more comfortable as Sebastian than expected, yet determined to keep his exploits a secret, Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of a delicately balanced double-life. As he confronts conflicting feelings of ecstasy, shame, and exhilarating liberation, Max has to reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a writer's tool to achieve first-hand authenticity -- or whether something more is at stake.