MovieChat Forums > Following Sean (2006) Discussion > Tedious, self-aggrandizing vanity projec...

Tedious, self-aggrandizing vanity project

posted 11 years ago by bureau203
2 replies | jump to latest

If this documentary had been about what it said it was about, it might have been good, but it's not really about Sean. It's about the filmmaker and all of his opinions and observations. Sean was included in the film almost as a secondary character, as if the filmmaker begrudgingly included him. The film is really mostly about the filmmaker. He talks about himself incessantly. He spends way more time talking about himself than he does about the supposed subject.

The film seems to promise some insight into how the 4-year-old son of drug addicted hippie parents turned out, but the film spends almost no time actually investigating this.

What a waste of time.

[–] iruleall15 11 years ago

Its about over 30 years how not only has Sean grown up and changed but how the director changed over a 30 year span.

[–] ARoggen 11 years ago

I agree. There are so many documentaries that fall victim to the narcissism and low skill of the filmmaker. If he wanted to get a point of view across, he should have interviewed subjects to speak to these points. He was a very weak interviewer, filling time with calling information and awkward embarrassed giggles of the subject.

Especially when Sean talks about his embarrassment as a kid of him mom's devotion to a guru, the filmmaker is smart about asking about the depth of Sean's spouted beliefs in the first film, like consuming pot as a 3 and 4 year old, but then doesn't really follow up on it. It would be good to have him talk about what he thought about it then and now and if he did the same for his kids. It is just flat.