Movie Review: The Sessions
The sessions about which the title of the new film The Sessions speaks are sex therapy sessions, and the audience learns that there can only be six total. Not to be mistaken with nights spent with a paid sex worker, these sessions are raw, real, awkward, and heartbreaking. John Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, a man whose least distinguishing characteristic is that he is a thirty-eight-year-old virgin. Mark is paralyzed from the neck down and he relies on an iron lung at night and breathing tubes during the day to stay alive. He is feeling his mortality, as people with his condition do not often live to be 80. One of his regrets is that he has never had sexual intercourse. But he has worked as a writer and a functioning member of society. In fact, his goal is to write an article about what is like to see a sex therapist. Hawkes plays Mark with a humor and innocence that is great to see, as he’s been known mostly for playing chilling villains in such movies as Winter’s Bone and Martha Marcy May Marlene.
We don’t learn much about how Mark ended up the way he is, save a brief mention of the fact that he contracted polio as a child (the movie is set in the 1980s and Mark O’Brien was a real person – one who actually wrote that article on sex therapists), and we’re shown a brief flashback of him on the beach when he could still walk. We do know that he is Catholic and he burdens his priest, Father Mike (the terrific William H. Macy) with his wishes to remedy his sexual inexperience. Father Mike is a confidante and decides not to throw the book at Mark, giving him the answer he needs to proceed. Some of his friends have contacts, and one of them is professional sex therapist Cheryl (Helen Hunt). We don’t learn a ton about her either, but that seems to solidify the point that the relationship between therapist and patient is not supposed to be personal (she changes the subject when he asks about her life). But of course it becomes personal.
Both lead actors bare their souls, but Hunt needs to be commended for baring her body in a natural and un-self conscious way, as a no-nonsense sex therapist would, and a lot of the buzz this movie will receive will be because of that. At 49, she is using her body as a tool for her craft, not as a gratuitous device (but it is worth mentioning that said tool looks good for its age). Cheryl is not a porn star with a pole, but a real woman who is trying to help a real man. She takes notes as a psychiatrist would. She is married, and her husband Josh is played by Adam Arkin, who seems underutilized here, but he has a couple of good scenes. We do learn that he (or Cheryl, as she’s the one who reveals it) is Jewish and a “philosopher,” which seems to mean that he has plenty of time to think because he doesn’t have a job. An observer can think one of two things about this situation: that poor Cheryl has to work by having sex with other men to support her family (they have a son), or, that no one else but such a man would be confident enough to accept her profession. She is considering converting for him, which is interesting, as this is normally something one does before getting married. But again, the lack of details about her personal life seem to be intentional to her profession.
John Hawkes and Moon Bloodgood in “The Sessions.”
Mark has caregivers, and he seems to choose them not for their medical experience, but rather for entertainment value – can they carry on a good conversation, or, more importantly, are they pretty? And the tone of the movie allows for the audience to be on his side for any choice that he makes – hell yes, he should be able to have anyone he wants as a companion, just as he should be given the pass on having premarital sex, which his religion tells him is a sin. But he gets attached, and his heart gets broken. One of these caretakers, Vera, played by Moon Bloodgood, is a steady presence for him. She doesn’t have a ton a dialogue, but this character supports him with her quiet strength, and her face says all that needs to be said. Her scenes with the motel manager (who refuses to believe the “their having sex” explanation) are hilarious. Despite the seriousness of the matter at hand, humor does infuse itself in this movie.
The ending of The Sessions seems abrupt but I would say that that’s a calculating move on the director/writer’s part. This man’s life can end at any moment, so thus will the movie. All six sessions are not utilized, for reasons that are best left for the movie to explain. The ending scene hits a high note – this movie wasn’t about sex. It was about life, and how this man used it and touched others.
