Movie #9 of the holiday season is a wonderful character study called The Sessions, an inexpensive independent film that has already garnered Golden Globe nominations and Oscar buzz. This may be hard to find in your local area but find it before the awards season.
The Sessions (John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy) – Amazing performances by John Hawkes (Oscar nominee for Winter’s Bone), Helen Hunt (Oscar winner for As Good As It Gets), and William H. Macy (Oscar nominee for Fargo) give this truly “small” film incredible power as a character study about a polio victim’s desire to have sex before he dies. Shot for about $1 million, which can be the price tag of filming one Super Bowl commercial, The Sessions has grossed over $6 million as of the end of 2012. With Golden Globe nominations for Hawkes and Hunt, The Sessions is one of the “it” independent movies of the year.
It is a true story. Mark O’Brien (Hawkes) is a polio victim (circa 1988) restricted to his iron lung all but 3-4 hours at a time. He is a poet and journalist who has come to grips with his illness and refuses to be beaten by it despite living years beyond his life expectancy. His caregivers do everything for him. He is not paralyzed; he has all the same feelings most of us do but he just doesn’t have muscle control, including the ability to breathe, thus his dependency on the iron lung. With a wonderful sense of humor and a gift for words, O’Brien wants to experience every part of life. He has no women in his life other than one of his caregivers, and he hates her. So he asks his new priest (William H. Macy in one his patented second-banana roles) if it is okay if he fires her, fearing that he is sinning. He cans her and moves on to a young, beautiful woman with whom he falls in love. Though clearly fond of him, she leaves rather than face the fact that she may be in love with a severely disabled person.
O’Brien seeks a therapist and confides his desire to have carnal knowledge of a woman before his inevitable young death. Enter Cheryl (Hunt), a professional sex surrogate, who is part psychologist and part paramour. She is not a prostitute, she makes clear, because a prostitute “wants repeat business and I don’t.” Plus. The maximum number of sessions is six. The interactions between Mark and Cheryl form the heart of Director Ben Lewin’s screenplay. They are electric moments punctuated by pretty frank nudity that seems more natural than gratuitous. (Yes, Helen Hunt looks great coming up on her 50th birthday this year.) As an audience, you feel sorry for O’Brien as you root for him to be able to overcome his disability, his naïveté, his inexperience, and his deep-seeded guilt.
Hawkes is transcending as O’Brien. In Winter’s Bone, he was gruff, uncaring, and contemptible. Here, he is soft-spoken, gentle, funny and self-effacing. In a year with fabulous male performances, he deserves an Oscar nomination even if he has to watch Daniel Day-Lewis collect the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hunt is daring and sensitive and deserves the Golden Globe nomination. Macy is wonderful, too, in a role completely designed to move the plot.
If you’re not shy about sex and want to see three fine actors performing a movie that feels like a play, make sure you see, rent or buy The Sessions.