The Sessions is a feel good movie about sex and the disabled. It's based on an article by Mark O'Brien, a paralyzed writer, entitled “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate”, which detailed his loss of virginity at the hands of a professional sex therapist. It treats its delicate subject with honest frankness and a gentle sense of humor.
John Hawkes stars as O'Brien, a writer and poet living in San Francisco, who has been paralyzed from the neck down since the age of six due to polio. He still has feeling in his body, but can not move a muscle and spends nearly all of his time in an iron lung, only emerging for three to four hours a day. He is supervised nearly round the clock by a rotating group of carers. When one of them, a young, female college student, awakens romantic feelings in him that are rejected, he starts to wonder about the possibility of losing his virginity, eventually hiring a sexual surrogate (played by Helen Hunt) for whom he begins to develop feelings for.
Although both Hawkes and Hunt are nominated for Golden Globes for their performances, it is only Hunt who is nominated for the Oscar. Personally, I'm not sure how she got nominated for either,although I have a theory. Hawkes, on the other hand, is very deserving of the praise he has received. Anyone who only knows him from his sinister role as Jennifer Lawrence's meth addicted uncle in Winter's Bone, will be very surprised at the differences in this part. He's funny in a self-deprecating way. He only has his head, face and voice to act with and yet he creates a fully rounded, three-dimensional character who is limited, but never defined by his handicap.
Hunt does a fine job as Cheryl, the sexual surrogate, but the most notable thing about her performance is the nudity. She does quite a lot of it, which is rare for a couple of reasons. You don't often see an actress in her late 40s doing nude scenes and it's filmed in a very matter of fact way. It's in the course of a sexual act, but it's hardly filmed in a way designed to be titillating. For the record, Hunt is still in great shape and even though it's not particularly erotic, her nudity does become the focal point of those scenes simply because we're not used to seeing it. Beyond her willingness to do the full Monty, there's nothing else that really stands out about her performance or that screams, “Give me an award.” It's nice. It's fine. Good even, but if her scenes had been filmed in a way where we didn't see her naked, would we hear her name on Oscar night?
One of the most refreshing aspects of the movie is the way sex is discussed and filmed in a grown-up manner. While there is humor in Mark's quest to lose his virginity, there's no giggling behind hands like a teenager when the subject comes up. It combines jokes and drama in a way that builds up to a life affirming, if melancholy, ending.
