The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (1998)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Tod Williams

Writer:

Tod Williams (written by)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

In June, 1983, in Dutchess County, New York, Sebastian Cole joins his mother, step-father, and sister for dinner...

Plot Keywords:

High School | England | Sex Education | Frisk | Teenage Boy

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Adrian Grenier	...	Sebastian Cole
Clark Gregg	...	Hank / Henrietta Rossi
Aleksa Palladino	...	Mary
Margaret Colin	...	Joan Cole
John Shea	...	Hartley
Marni Lustig	...	Jessica Cole
Joan Copeland	...	Grandmother
Tom Lacy	...	Grandfather
Gabriel Macht	...	Troy
Herbert Russell	...	Wayne (as Russel Harper)
Greg Haberny	...	Jimmy Bogardus
Peter McRobbie	...	Principal
Merritt Wever	...	Susan
Marisol Padilla Sánchez	...	Woman In Desert
Rory Cochrane	...	Chinatown

MPAA:

Rated R for language and crude sexual references, and for some substance abuse.

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:L | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Clermont, New York, USA

Company:

Culpan Productions LLC

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The movie that Sebastian and his date go to see is The Mangler (1995). But the film takes place in the mid to late-1980s and The Mangler was released in 1995.

Quotes:

Sebastian Cole: First I have to live a little so I have something to write about.
Henrietta Cole: So, for the time being, you're just going to live a little?
Sebastian Cole: No, I'm going to live a lot.

Movie Connections:

Features The Mangler (1995)

Soundtrack:

Where is My Mind

A touching coming-of-age story filled with wit and irony

The Adventures of Sebastian Cole is a movie about Sebastian, a teenage boy who has an extremely dysfunctional family. His father is married to a South East Asian woman and is hardly ever around. His mother is married to a man named Hank. She has a partial breakdown when Hank reveals that he is going to have a sex change operation. She takes Sebastian and moves back to her homeland England. Sebastian doesn't like England so he goes back to stay with his step father Hank, who is now in the process of becoming a woman and called Henrietta. While staying with her he has many intentional adventures that he plans on using in a novel that he wants to write. These adventures include nearly drinking himself to death, getting high from a whip cream bottle, being with a girl named Mary, and riding his bike through the halls of his school as a masked man. The movie had many different plot twists but some of the story became dragged out longer than it should off. Still when it reached the end I found myself in tears, which I would consider a good quality because it means that I became close enough to the characters to become emotionally involved.

The acting was good, especially the performance of Adrian Grenier. I loved him as Sebastian. He was comical and dramatic. Sebastian was maturing though out the film but still had a lot to learn about life. Adrian Grenier knew how to become this character and I think that his performance was phenomenal.