A valentine to human potential and an at times staggering testimony to the more tender side of sex, The Sessions breaks ground while breaking your heart.
Starring John Hawkes as a 30-something victim of polio who spends much of his time in an iron lung, this audacious and surprisingly funny film asks us to contemplate Mark O’Brien’s mirthful mission to lose his virginity despite hardly being able to move. Able to lie only on his back in short stretches, Mark explains he has sensations below the waist but his motor skills are completely out of whack. He enlists a compassionate yet professional Sex Surrogate (Helen Hunt in a brave and perfect performance). One of her first spiels to Mark distinguishes the important difference between a surrogate and a prostitute. She’s there to genuinely help him and there will only be six sessions after which, sayonara. The viewer will also observe that like a prostitute, a surrogate will also keep emotional distance. At least of the attachment variety. However, eliciting healthy emotions are very much in play in a surrogate’s harmoniously varied methods, and Mark becomes a richer creature of feeling for his efforts at physical gratification. But not before experiencing some highly touching and often wildly amusing detours along the way.
Hawkes, very good as the meth dealer in Winter’s Bone, and outstanding as the cult leader in Martha Marcy May Marlene, doesn’t even look like himself here. His performance is nothing short of astonishing. Anyone familiar with the disabled will not just appreciate his craft at getting the details just right but will marvel at the amount of wit and verve he throws into his character. It’s practically a cliche these days that anyone playing a downtrodden or especially diseased character gets bonus points at awards time yet I can’t imagine Hawkes being ignored when Oscar nominations roll around. Nor Hunt, who is far more often naked in this film than not, both physically and emotionally. The 49-year-old actress obviously believed in this role enough to take a big risk and it pays off handsomely.
As a society we too often shun the disabled and tap dance around our conversations with them. The Sessions makes us comfortable around Mark and, thus, we begin to care about him. A lot. Based on a true story, the film also explores Mark’s encounters with various healthcare aides and with a savvy priest, who would ordinarily feel like an annoyingly tacked-on character, but is quite plausible here in no small part due to William H. Macy’s playing the priest. Mark regularly consults Macy as he embarks on his unique therapy since he considers himself a good Catholic and wants to know if the sex sessions violate any sex-out-of-wedlock church creeds. Mark earned a degree from The University of California while transporting himself to class on a gurney. The poetry Mark writes is played up in the film and makes us want more. Director/screenwriter Ben Lewin based The Sessions on “On Seeing A Sex Surrogate,” a 1990 Sun magazine article that O’Brien wrote. I know I won’t be the only one searching out “Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien,” a 1996 Academy Award winning documentary.
The Session allows us to get inside Mark’s every insecurity, every desire (however brazen they might seem at first), and, ultimately, every disappointment. It’s a bittersweet life affirmation that wisely keeps in mind the very limitations we are all under, physically fit or otherwise, and the often uncanny methods we apply to overcome them.
4.5 Sex Surrogates Behaving Meaningfully (out of 5)