Sex and Obsession in the Digital Era
"Sequin in a blue room" provides a sober look at a teen's hook up cycle.
“Sequin in a blue room” is Samuel van Grinsven’s graduate project, and perhaps it’s why it manages to offer fear and adoration in equal doses, never tipping fully in either direction. This allows the film to be both a celebration and warning of online hook up culture.
Our protagonist Sequin is 16 but passes himself for 18 on the hook-up app Anon. It’s his primary social media, his go-to app anytime he’s not on the move, collecting ‘bumps’ like Instagram likes. Even in class, he browses through his options, his teacher’s monologues on romance and obsession serving as background music to his fantasies.
Pauses are used to placate his father, who is fairly easy-going since he doesn’t expect any surprise pregnancies, or to block those who make up the notches in his bedpost. He’s strictly one and done.
Sequin is challenged on his policy early on by B, a married forty-something who is eager for a repeat, happy to schedule it right away. Sequin preens at the attention, oblivious to any red flags.
His confidence seems real enough as he carries on with his routine, but the youthful cloak of invincibility is just an illusion.
The titular Blue Room is a weekly invite only group sex event. Sequin is sought out, invited personally, and he doesn’t hesitate to attend. The cold atmosphere and enforced silence feeds into the exclusive and illicit nature of the event.
Sequin spots B, his pushy hook-up, but he’s saved from having to confront him by a young black man, with whom he exchanges some low whispered words. The plastic sheeting around them creating the illusion of semi privacy, all the while B remains a spectator to their encounter.
This marks the first time Sequin wants a repeat. Despite the public and exhibitionist nature of the blue room, the two of them connected. And he wants to find him again.
In order to get what he wants, Sequin has no choice but to return to B, ignoring the increasing intensity of the messages received since they last saw each other. He hopes to finagle information out of him, on the guest list or who knows the guest list, at least.
It becomes a cat and mouse game; wherein Sequin believes himself to be the pursuer, trying to peel back the layers of the Anon structure, just for a name— but in reality he is the one being herded into situations where he’ll be easy prey.
While the app is contingent on the concept of anonymity, it becomes clear quite fast that it’s a veneer. Connections exist outside the app, and B knows enough people he can pull favours from; people who will side with him and won’t hesitate to show it.
While the film has mostly been lauded as a magnetizing coming of age story, one Letterboxd comment that stood out came from a gay man who didn’t appreciate this representation of hook up culture, the dark menacing undertones, “This brand of sex negativity feels a bit jarring and outdated in 2021.” An understandable complaint, and I can see how he got there. It’s jarring, but I don’t agree conclusion that it’s being negative or sordid.
Despite the negative outcomes for Sequin and the colour grading reminiscent of Catherine Hardwicke. While it’s used effectively to amplify the suspense, the undertow of optimism is palpable.
With the folly of youth, and maybe raging hormones, Sequin doesn’t hesitate to put himself in questionable situations. A memorable scene is the one where Sequin is roughly sobered up from what was a euphoric high, only to realize he was being stalled and delayed for B’s arrival.
Yet, he’s hardly discouraged in his quest to find his dream man. While Sequin has been using the app exclusively to meet men at least twice his age, it’s the hook-up that is closest to his own that he’s drawn to for more.
Dream guy is ultimately a disappointment, as is bound to happen when a parallel fantasy life has already been constructed in your mind., which Sequin had been doing from the get go. His dream guy has a partner waiting for him, an older man, and Sequin may have just been an anomaly.
“I can’t believe the situations I put myself in. If I told anyone about it they would tell me how dangerous it could have been. But I did it, then I left, didn’t tell anyone and largely pretended it didn’t happen.” - Samuel van Grinsven, quoting a friend
Sequin’s continued choices and his quest for love seemed to put him in danger, over and over. But the reality is that B had fixated on him from the very beginning, and was himself orchestrating multiple ways to corner him. It shows how easily some people can cross lines, and feel entitled to do so.
It’s also unsurprising that a digital native like Sequin would see the app as an extension of himself working in his favour only, without factoring in what he doesn’t see, the real life component and the string pulling. You’ve got to experience that disillusion to figure it out. This is what makes the film so eerily accurate.