What happens to a 4-year-old kid who grew up smoking pot and running barefoot on the wild streets of 1960s San Francisco? In Following Sean, a magical blend of deeply intriguing personal narrative and street-level investigation, filmmaker Ralph Arlyck tracks down Sean–the boy who had been the subject of his controversy-sparking 1969 documentary–to find out what he’s like 30 years later. As the offspring of Communist grandparents and free-wheeling Haight-Ashbury parents, the smart and appealing grown man whom Arlyck finds uncorks a fascinating rumination on the unpredictability of life. The film captures subtle, profound scenes of Sean’s beautiful Russian wife, his aging but still 60s-inspired father, his feisty Lincoln Brigade grandmother, and weaves these stories into the filmmaker’s reflections on his own 60s encounters and his current New York life. In visiting multiple family generations–with their radically different ideas about work, responsibility, and freedom–Following Sean movingly probes the big questions with which we all grapple.
