Vassilis Kroustallis reviews the LGBT+ escort/writer story 'Sebastian' by Mikko Mäkelä.

Empathy seems to be the strong card of the UK-based, Finnish director Mikko Mäkelä. Seven years after the pertinent, immigrant love story 'A Moment in the Reeds', he moves from countryside Finland to London (and Brussels) for his sex-positive, tense (yet rather undecided in its motivations) film, 'Sebastian'.

Sebastian is the escort site name for aspiring young writer, 25-year-old Max Williamson (a magnetic presence by Ruaridh Mollica). While the Scottish gay writer works as a freelancer in a London literary magazine (with its carefully detailed rules for publishing and deadlines), he's not-so-secretly obsessed with fame and recognition. A little bit oblivious to his friend Amna's worries (Hiftu Quasem), Max is envious of his writing idol, Bret Easton Ellis (for which he has to prepare Q&As for a magazine interview). Not to mention that Max is anxiously waiting to publish his short stories -with his first novel to follow.

What his friends (and mum) and publishers don't know is Max's written assignments and novel draft -describing a gay escort's encounters with men- are not based on interviews but on his personal experience.

Or rather, Max starts (as Sebastian) his very successful escort career to write his novel instead. The leeway between life and art has been exploited many times before (a closer look is Ozon's claustrophobic 2021 'In the House'). Yet Mäkelä uses here this ploy as an active investigation on the part of the rather distanced, a little arrogant, and decidedly not caring character (his only sentimental anchor is his mum, whom he rarely trusts). We witness this in the first scene when Max (as Sebastian) gets his date with an older gay man -and he performs to perfection, yet only his partner shares the excitement.

Being part of an open investigation, the film seems to go along with Max/Sebastian's uncertainty, leaving a lot to guess regarding his motives -especially his desires to hook up with (sometimes) much older men. While the tone of the film is tied up with Max's increasing befuddlement, 'Sebastian' itself won't explain whether Sebastian feels shame (for whatever reasons) or he is too concerned about not feeling shame for making his sex life a (very readable) content of a book. Going increasingly erratic in his magazine obligations, Max hooks up with an older, comparative literature teacher Nicholas (Jonathan Hyde); here is where the film gets its "Harold & Maude" moment, shining somehow what has become before -and a little trite adventure that will follow afterward.

Iikka Salminen's lighting emphasizes close warm encounters in a number of hotel rooms and cozy, affluent places -the places where Max as Sebastian seems to excel more in his precisely determined role. Mollica himself keeps the whole edifice together, being both determined and ignorant of what his next step will be like, hoping to jump from one experience to the next unscathed. The film's steamy scenes keep the film away from the victim/victimizer terrain and establish more confidence in his sexuality person than in anything else.

'Sebastian' is an ultimately absorbing and a little disturbing film; it makes you root for a character whose ambitions overpower his common human sense; his inability even to form a non-paying relationship is displayed brilliantly when he visits a Brussels gay bar and hooks up with another guy). While its ending won't seem earned (but it feels good), it keeps you tense in your seat, with sex again used for power purposes (here power over yourself).

Vassilis Kroustallis