“Love, Sebastian” is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy, Sebastian, living his life one day at a time. His parents are divorced and he lives with his abusive, jobless father in a run-down house. His dad is very cautious and invasive about what goes on in the young man’s life. This results in Sebastian never having a phone while growing up. His mother lives a few hours away and he rarely gets to visit her. He loves his mother more than anything and wishes to live with her but his father refuses to let him. Sebastian is all that he has left and he never wants to lose his only son.
One day, while Sebastian was visiting with his mother, he goes to the grocery store, nothing to be expected. While he was grabbing a gallon of milk, he sees a beautiful girl, Remington, a few feet away. He stares at her for a couple seconds before she notices him staring. He smiles subtly and begins to walk away, but as soon as he walks away, he knew that couldn't leave. Turning around, chest pounding he begins talking to her. She asks for his number, but he doesn’t have a phone. Sebastian tells her that she can take his address and she’s a little reluctant at first, but she gives Sebastian her phone and he makes a contact in her phone with no number, but an address.
They begin to write these letters back and forth. Sebastian is happier than ever but is still trying to hide it from his dad by lying about who was at the door. Sebastian, in the first letter he sends her, talks about his divorced parents and lies, saying that it was his choice to live with his father. At the end of the letter, he asks Remington to talk about herself. She begins to tell Sebastian that she also has divorced parents, her “chronic sickness” and talks of her writing and her drawings inspired by her dreams of a mysterious black figure swallowing up her dream. She collapses reading one of Sebastian’s letters and is rushed to the hospital, which is what we see in the opening scene, while we here the first letter.
He accidentally leaves a letter on the kitchen table but his father gets there before he could. Sebastian tries to grab the letter but his father pushes him against the wall and punches him in the eye. The time skips forward a few weeks and we see Sebastian in class writing another letter to Remington. He tells her everything about his abusive father and the threats of what would happen if he leaves him for his mother. Remington never reads this letter all the way through, but Remington’s mother, Clarissa, does.
After Clarissa reads the letter, she reports it to the police. An officer goes to Sebastian’s house to find his father is forcefully abusing him, again. The officer breaks up the punches being thrown. His father, still infuriated, grabs the officers gun, throws it into the kitchen, and begins wrestling the officer; Sebastian observes in the corner of the room. After a short time, the officer restrains his father and brings him outside and shoves him in the back of the cruiser. The officer leaves, no words said. Sebastian goes back to the kitchen to think but hears a knock on his door and we see a lady at the door with a letter hanging out of her purse; It’s Clarissa, but he’s never met her. She introduces herself as Remington’s mom and he immediately asks her to come inside.
They sit in the kitchen and begin to talk about how she found him, how she knew, and how Remington is doing. She very shakily tells Sebastian that Remington is sick; very sick. After a long stream of events, Sebastian is reunited with his mom and it turns out that Clarissa didn’t live too far down the road.
Sebastian goes to the same grocery store where they met, getting the same item. He sees a white balloon and it occurs to him to send one more letter. He writes the perfect letter and tapes it to the balloon. We see Sebastian, his mom, and Clarissa sitting on a back porch talking about Remington. Everyone is smiling and Sebastian holds a white balloon with the letter. They get up and walk, carefully letting it go for Remington.
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CAST AND CREW
Written and Directed by Justin Green
Videography and Edit by Ridge Woods
Remington: Madelynn Henson
Sebastian: Evan Liscombe
Remington's Mom: Madelyn Roberts
Sebastian's Dad: Jacob Graham
Sebastian's Mom: Stephanie Thomas
Doctor: Hunter Spears
Grips:
Drew Magnuson
Preston Koman
Rachel Cyers
Lexi Hughes
Special Thanks To: Lexi Hughes and the Cyers family.
