'Sebastian' is the name Max uses when he's working as an escort and Max, his real name, is the one he uses when he's writing his novel about Sebastian, a young sex worker. The film "Sebastian" doesn't really go anywhere we haven't been before but this one is intelligent, well acted and just explicit enough to ring true, (well, you can't really make a movie about a sex-worker without showing some sex).
Newcomer Ruaridh Mollica as Sebastian/Max shows real promise but it's Jonathan Hyde as the older man who becomes his #1 client and later his friend and mentor and, I suppose, his lover who steals the movie. As written, Hyde's character might just have been another 'John' but Hyde embues him with layers of feeling and a depth that is actually quite moving.
It's also a telling picture of the London literary scene, packed with hypocritical sycophants dishing out faint praise like crumbs from a table and it's a scene Max finally embraces not as Sebastian but as himself. The cliches of violence and abandonment are still there but at least he gets his happy ending.
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