Film spews repugnant independent 'Adventure'

By Aaron Rich
Daily Arts Writer

It must be clear from the beginning that the title, "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole" is a misnomer - well, at least there are no adventures in the film. It's entirely understandable that the marketing and promotions people would opt for that name, over a more honest one (such as "Sebastian Cole: Boy Who Sits on Roof Tops") - but, oh, well.

Titular character, Sebastian (Adrian Grenier) lives in rural New York State in the early 1980s with his mother, sister and stepfather. As soon as Sis graduates from high school, Step Dad, Hank (Clark Gregg) announces that he is going to start a hormone therapy process before he undergoes a sex change operation.

Mom takes off for England and directionless Sebastian ends up living with Hank (who changes his name to Henrietta - no kidding). For the next 75 minutes, we are forced to watch Sebastian do nothing out of the ordinary for a boy of his age.

There's something about the 1980s in the New York/New Jersey area that is utterly unappealing - both in story and aesthetic appearance. Another good example of this is Susan Skoog's 1998 endeavor "Whatever," about a girl just as plain as Sebastian who also has no direction (nor does she have enough interesting issues about which to write a film).

In both that film and "Sebastian Cole," perhaps the only positive comment could be that they get the ugliness and striped polyester of the early '80s down so well that the vomit sneaks to the top of our throats and we thank goodness that short hair is back in style these days.

"Sebastian Cole" wreaks of the worst of independent film. Everything smells of fishy, low-budget writing and acting. The makeup looks pulled directly from writer/director Tod Williams' refrigerator (that is the B-movie, ketchup-like blood) and the wigs (long hair, man) seem to be directly from the horse stalls.

So, we'd think that the story of a boy being raised by his transgendered stepfather would be a big part of his life story. Well, actually, it's not. Williams spends no time dealing with the fact that this boy's only male "role-model" is a woman. It's an interesting idea for a story - but somehow, it did not make it into this flick.

And, once again, back to this idea of "adventure," we wait for anything exciting to happen - even a mini-adventure would be greatly appreciated, Mr. Williams. At one moment in the film, Sebastian alludes to his "second" adventure, which begs the question: When was the "first adventure"? Oh, yeah, it was that really boring New York City sequence that nearly put us to sleep.

It is not clear whether the second adventure was planned to be about alcohol poisoning, or if Sebastian, the never-tiring journeyman, just got really pissed one night.

It's not clear, but it seems as if his third (and, perhaps last) adventure involves an Oldsmobile boat in a car accident caused by Sebastian who gets some bad (and poorly delivered) news. The crash does lead to that wonderfully bad make-up, though.

We should not hold our breath waiting for "Adventures, Part Two." But don't be surprised, as long as there are talentless actors and filmmakers out there, there will always be bad independent wrecks like "Sebastian Cole."

09-28-99