‘The Sessions’ Review

Release Date: November 16, 2012
Director: Ben Lewin
MPAA Rating: R
Film Pulse Score: 8/10

Yes, it has been a couple of weeks since The Sessions opened but it only recently came to my neck of the woods and I jumped at the chance to see it before it was gone.  I’m glad I did because it is a wonderful movie that should be seen.  It tells the true story of Mark O’Brien – a writer and journalist who suffered from polio from the age of six until his death in 1999 at the age of 49 – and his desire to have sexual relations before he passed away.  To do so, he enlisted the help of a sex surrogate named Cheryl Cohen Greene who assisted physically disabled individuals who needed assistance with sexual activities.  The film is only peripherally about sex and more about one man’s inner-most desire to experience one of life’s most exciting and normal behavior and the associated feelings.  The result is an extraordinary motion picture about life, love, intimacy, friendship, humor, faith, and more. 

O’Brien is brilliantly portrayed by that wondrous character actor, John Hawkes, who I feel certain people who “know him if they saw him in a film or television production” but do not readily know the name (despite his having been deservedly nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Winter’s Bone).  Incidentally, I believe Hawkes will hear his name come Oscar nomination time again, this time in the lead category for this performance.  Greene is played by Helen Hunt who is also very good; in fact, I do not think she has been this good since she appeared in Waterdance decades ago or when she was acting opposite Paul Reiser in “Mad About You.”

Hawkes and Hunt perform a particular and peculiar “dance” that could have easily gone terribly wrong if melodrama seeped into their work; thankfully, it does not and the result is a wonderful duet.  The third character of note is O’Brien’s confidant, the local Catholic priest named Father Brendan played with great simplicity by another of cinema’s terrific character actors – William H. Macy.  The confessions between O’Brien and Brendan are held at the church’s altar because O’Brien is on a gurney and simply cannot fit into a confessional.  These moments are humorous, life-affirming, truthful, and insightful.

A story about a disabled man’s coming to terms with his sex could have easily veered into sentimentality or gross humor.   As writer and director, Ben Lewin takes the source material – O’Brien’s own writings – and steers the film and its characters away from schmaltz and into almost sacred ground.  When O’Brien has the opportunity to leave his iron lung and venture into the world, including his sessions with his sex surrogate, his basic character traits remain unchanged; what changes are his circumstances and then it is the audience’s joy to watch his reaction to what we so often take for granted – being simply touched, having one’s hair tousled, being kissed, etc..  Of course, there are more sexual maneuvers that Greene takes O’Brien through, but what explicitness is shown is both brief and necessary; what we see is enough to let us know how O’Brien must have felt.

Additional characters inhabit O’Brien’s world, including his two caregivers who wheel his gurney around town or are available if needed during the night – Vera (Moon Bloodgood) and Rod (W. Earl Brown).  They provide constancy and friendship in O’Brien’s life, but he seeks more – a kind of companionship they simply cannot offer.

For those who have yet to see the film, I will not say more about what transpires between O’Brien and Greene.  It should be seen, thought upon, and discussed with your friends.  At only 98 minutes long, it was a film I could have enjoyed for much longer and yet it is just right in terms of its length and how it is edited.  It says and shows only what it needs to and nothing more.  And what could have been a depressing story is anything but, and I believe much of the credit goes to O’Brien’s writings himself which, as I said earlier, are largely the basis for the film’s narrative.  It is a uniquely beautiful film.