Sequin in a Blue Room review — veers from deft to daft

★★★☆☆
The novice Australian actor Conor Leach delivers an assured turn in this low-budget drama as “Sequin” (his nickname), a mildly distracted 16-year-old Sydney schoolboy by day and a voraciously randy gay Don Juan by night.

Sequin, as the film begins, is burning through his Grindr-style hook-up app (called Frnd) on a man-a-night basis until an impulsive trip to a local high-rise orgy in a blue-lit apartment (see title) sends his adolescent life spinning out of control. He becomes, in short, the lust object of a possessive and violent older man.

The debut director and co-writer Samuel van Grinsven displays a deft comedic touch with the classroom scenes (teacher droning on about Heathcliff and Victorian romance while Sequin sexts potential conquests) and with Sequin’s awkward exchanges with his blokey, matey father (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor). However, the movie’s slow segue into thriller territory is less convincing and, in places, slightly daft.
18, 80min
From April 9 on Amazon, Apple, Google, Sky Store