Verdict: A shaggy, elliptical coming-of-age tale.

Details: Starring Adrian Grenier and Clark Gregg. Rated R for language, crude sexual references and substance abuse. 1 hour, 52 minutes.

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Review: "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole" is as shaggy and unformed as its hero's haircut. That's part of its charm. It's a coming-of-age tale that recognizes that coming of age is an ongoing experience that lasts long beyond adolescence.

Set in 1983, this amiably meandering comedy-drama unfolds in upstate New York. It's there that Sebastian (Adrian Grenier) listens with his startled sister and mother to his stepfather's news: Hank (Clark Gregg) intends to become a woman, and he hopes that's OK with the family.

It isn't. The news sends mom (Margaret Colin) fleeing back to her native England, dragging Sebastian with her, while sis heads prematurely for college out west. But a few months later, sick of the damp Old Country, Sebastian returns to the States. There he moves back in with Hank, whose permed hair, earth-mother necklaces and flowing frocks are helping him become "Henrietta."

Despite these changes, this is the same person who tough-loves Sebastian into getting up every day for school and doing his best. He's still a loving stepdad; he's just trying to find himself. So is Sebastian, a wily student who supplements his innate smarts with the occasional scam or reckless stunt (such as riding his bicycle through the high school hallways, disguised behind a ski mask). He wants to be a writer. He's looking for experience, whether that means drinking himself into a stupor in the parking lot of the liquor store or going to New York and looking for trouble.

Writer-director Tod Williams obviously enjoys his characters' foibles and usually doesn't force them toward easy solutions or revelations. Hank/Henrietta is only one of the many characters, including Sebastian's sardonic school friends and his on-again-off-again girlfriend (Aleksa Palladino). The film is casually paced and takes its time, which might make some viewers impatient. But if you're looking for a movie as interested in texture as plot, you might give these "Adventures" a look.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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