recommended

Beautiful, moving film.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I am sure that my summary above is confusing and I'll need to decode what I am talking about here. If you are looking for a quintessential 1970s film that is completely soaked in what the 70s looked like and sounded like, it's hard to find that better represents it than "Saturday Night Fever". And, when it comes to the 60s, I think "Sebastian" is THE quintessential film of that decade as well-- beginning with the weird opening credits and continuing throughout. Whatever you think of these sorts of films, they are all style, music, glitz, attitude, morals and pizazz--like films created less by scriptwriters and more by fashion designers and pop artists. This isn't at all a complaint--just an observation about style. In "Sebastian", you get all of what made the late 60s so goofy--the clothing, the colors, the sounds, the editing...everything. I think the film looks like a joint project by Peter Max and Twiggy!Sebastian (Dirk Bogarde) is a mathematical genius. He spends the beginning of the film recruiting more ladies to join his giant government think tank--ladies who can think outside the box and have quick minds. Throughout this process and once they begin their jobs, it soon becomes obvious that Sebastian just ain't normal--he lacks many social skills and is a very independent thinker. This ends up causing problems with the government, as he resists their attempts to control his department and rid it of 'undesirables'. Oddly, however, a new woman to the department, Rebecca (Susanna York) is intrigued by Sebastian and decides very quickly she wants to seduce him--even though his personality is seriously quirky and flawed to say the lest (he shows some signs of Asperger's). The film is about this affair as well as Sebastian's frustrations dealing with folks outside his department who are meddlers...and along the way is another plot, more sinister, involving an old mistress.So is all this any good? Well, I'd say that the setup for the story is quite good and very intriguing. However, over time the film seemed to lose momentum. Part of it was because occasionally the film showed a bit of a misogyny--such as when Sebastian slapped his new girlfriend across the face. Overall, it's not a bad film but promised to be so much more at the start.

A light story about cryptographers... not an easy sell as a script, but afforded a platform for the talents of John Gielgud, Dirk Bogarde, Lilli Palmer, the spunky Susannah York and others. The tiny message about being careful when working for a classified department is more and more relevant, as Microsoft just discovered when their source code was stolen via the hijacking of an employee's computer on the air from home. When in doubt, lengthen the password...

I saw this movie when I was in the "game" that was played in the movie. I was with a group of men in a foreign land though, not in England with a group of women. Lord knows I would have preferred the latter. I have not seen this movie since the 70's and would love to acquire a copy of it. What does it take to get a DVD made?

I discovered this movie via my affexion for Jerry Goldsmith's innovative (for the period) score... highly recommended for its quintessential marriage of images and sounds...The talent on view here, and the obvious affexion its cast and crew have for this film (evident in every frame) make this a must see.