It’s notoriously difficult to make films about writers. Writing — literally sitting down at a keyboard and banging out words — is about as fun to watch as paint drying. So filmmakers make much of the research process, the uneven economics, the epic highs and lows of creative life. “Sebastian,” the second feature from Mikko Mäkelä (“A Moment in the Reeds”), takes these liberties to new, bizarre heights, as its scribe protagonist turns to sex work to gin up inspiration for his forthcoming novel
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Our author is Max (Ruaridh Mollica), a navel-gazing 25-year-old who escorts online under the name Sebastian. It’s unclear what compelled him to do this (and, crucially, that mystery will never be solved) but he’s ambivalent about it at best. He spits on the concrete after his first encounter and harbors guilt about mining his johns’ lives for content. Secrets likewise corrode his everyday relationships, as he leaves his friends and family in the dark. Meanwhile, the public nature of publishing threatens to topple Max’s double life.
If you think Max’s side gig is a commentary on the financial perils of full-time writing, you would be wrong. As he embarks on life as Sebastian, Max is a permalancer at a trendy London magazine with a short story freshly published in Granta. He’s just been assigned the story of his dreams: a profile of his literary idol, Bret Easton Ellis. He’s about to publish a collection of short stories, is in the running for a prestigious short story prize, and is writing his escorting novel on spec.
Any sane person in the literary industry would consider this to be whirlwind success at any age, much less 25 — but this is not a sensible movie, nor is Max a wise protagonist. Thus we’re left to wonder why Max subjects himself and everyone around him to such destruction, and Mäkelä never offers an answer. Max’s mother alludes to a bad breakup, and Max tells his writing group that he was inspired by an article he wrote about Gen Z sex workers. It’s unclear if these half-truths hold any weight.
As Max argues with other characters to justify the plot of his novel, Mäkelä uses his protagonist as an awkward mouthpiece through which to sort out his own script. It’s hard not to laugh when Max’s bestie, Amna (Hiftu Quasem), criticizes his novel for its repetitive scenes of middling hookups with older men, nor when Max self-deprecatingly refers to the gay escort as “a stock character of queer literature.” When Max defends the author Cyril Collard from being viewed as “immoral or selfish, unlikable,” it feels more than a little on the nose.
Mäkelä may have his own grand designs for “Sebastian,” just as Max passes off his fascination with a particularly kind older john as “transmitting queer history,” but they’re not borne out on-screen. If Mäkelä’s aim is to destigmatize sex or escorting, his approach is far too clinical. Maybe there’s something here about modern culture war woes: There’s the fixation with Brett Easton Ellis, plus a moment where an older woman uses the word “prostitutes” and a younger man tells the rest of the crowd with an eye roll, “I think Gloria means ‘sex workers.’” The scant commentary on writers and personal social media branding is also promising. Still, none of these seeds of ideas ever sprout, much less bear fruit.
Mollica is a charismatic, if subdued, performer, but he’s been given a rancid role. Max doesn’t seem particularly suited to escorting nor writing (if the purple bits he reads aloud to his writing group are any indication), yet he’s doomed to be beguiled by both. It’s frustrating, not vindicating, to watch him fail his way to the top in this film that is at once painfully self-conscious and totally clueless. You could say all “Sebastian” is missing is a scene where the main character jacks off in front of a mirror and then cries, but — spoiler alert — this movie already has that. [D]
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