SEAN from Ryan Reichenfeld on Vimeo.
Adolescence isn’t easy. It never is. The answers are just so… ambiguous.
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Sean is a meandering journey through the jumbled headspace of a typical teenager, presenting an almost weird and poetic insight into his life as he shares his thoughts on growing up, dreaming big, and one day getting out of his hometown of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
He lives in a place that could be Anywhere, USA: Eureka, Lodi, Topeka– take your choice.
Following Sean as he wakes up at 3:30 in the morning to flip burgers at Jack In The Box, he skates around his hometown, goes fishing, hangs with his girl, befriends the vacationing partiers down at the docks. It’s hard to tell if Sean is actually going somewhere or nowhere at this juncture in his life. He’s somewhere between limbo and liberation, the melting pot between childhood and adulthood.
He’s bored, restless, anxious. He’s waiting for something– anything– to happen in his life. Sean is pretty much alone in life, undergoing an emotional upheaval of sorts: clinging to the past and the equally powerful wish to get on with the future. It’s not about letting go as much as it is hanging on during a very bumpy ride.
At first, director Ryan Reichenfeld’s film may appear like it is about nothing much at all, but it’s all this pointless wandering that turns out to be its most affecting and resonating feature.
It’s a relatively unfiltered look into the mind of someone who you’d otherwise never get to know or hear from. It doesn’t glamorize youth, their problems, or tug at your heartstrings, but it also doesn’t portray the gloomy cliche of kids on the brink of adulthood and rebellion and disaster.
Sean simply gives us a glimpse into the everyday concerns of an average teen living in an average place under average circumstances. It’s a glimmer of insight into the consciousness of American adolescence and the coming of age today, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
by Skippy Massey
This post originally appeared at the Humboldt Sentinel. Reprinted with permission.
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