Sebastian movie, in theaters now. Seen at IFC in NYC August 18. Spoilers galore—this essay is intended for reading after watching the film (unless you’re not going to watch it). Movie details below.
One lost boy, in the dream grotto of English language: London.
Sebastian—the movie and also the novel within the movie—is (are?) the story of a young man who writes—and has to figure out if he is the subject or the object. Or both. His ability to express himself in written language is awkwardly balanced by his reticence when speaking. Inarticulate in situations that require diplomacy and open communication. Writing seems like a way to avoid (or control) connection.
Sebastian, the name, conjures up images of an idealized sexy twink saint, pierced by arrows. The arrows of other men’s objectification and the arrows of his own bewilderment. Sebastian also harks back to the lost boy depicted in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, another gay icon.
His reality is his name, Max (hardly a gay icon name), and his job at a magazine. He writes. And he aspires to greatness, as measured by the likes of Bret Easton Ellis. Fame and fortune while still young. There seems to be a great gaping hole in his soul, which he wants to fill with success but he finds sex work and money on the way.
The tale hinges on Max’s novel, the saga of a young sex worker who plies his trade with no shame. Max tells his editor and his best friend that he interviews sex workers. What he really does is do the work himself. Unlike his idealized protagonist Max is all too visibly wracked with shame, shame about where he is in his career and some part of his brain that disassociates so he can perform in bed with the older men who hire him.
These men range from lonely and schlubby through entitled to deeply tragic. The entitled one, Daniel, is the antagonist in the movie’s most brutal scene, in which both he and Sebastian violate each other, he by reading Max’s barely fictionalized account of their encounter on Max’s laptop—and Max by using his clients as fodder. Indeed the novel is barely a novel—it is a journal. And it takes turns with his adventures that veer away from the concept he had sold to his editor. Those turns bring up deeper feelings that complicate things for Sebastian, who was not really a professional sex worker to begin with.
His scenes with Nicholas are the heart of the film. Nicholas connects Max to gay history and mentorship. He puts an LP on his turntable (!) and out comes opera music, gay culture from a vanished era. French arias, linked to a conversation about French literature. First Dalila’s seductive Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix and then, devastatingly (but perhaps for only a tiny slice of the audience), Je crois entendre encore with its erotic nostalgia and the glowing silver voice of Jussi Björling.
Interestingly Max seems adrift with hardly any family support. His mum calls and they have one amusing scene where she mentions that she DOES know how the internet works. His dad only appears in a comment from his mum. Maybe that’s part of the hole—but I think that what Max needed was mentorship that no straight dad could provide. What was/is missing and is still deeply felt is the generation that died. Max lucks into meeting Nicholas and Nicholas in turn is blessed with a chance to give.
Nicholas fills some part of that gaping hole and Max sleeps over. Nicholas understands and supports Max’s creativity. That enables Max to put himself together, as subject and object, and make a tiny but immense change in his writing (set up earlier by a suggestion from his editor) and become his unified self. The ending is so simple and so satisfying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_(2024_film)