The Sessions (2012): All You Need Is Love

The Sessions, based on a true story, is a sweet, beautifully acted, life-affirming and surprisingly entertaining motion picture about a severely disabled man and his first sexual experience.  This may not sound like a particularly attractive premise for a movie, but read a little further, will you?

The man in question is Mark  O’Brien, a poet and journalist.  O’Brien, born in 1949 (one day after yours truly), contracted polio when he was six, suffering severe nerve damage as a result, and spent the rest of his life a quadriplegic.  His disability was not limited to just limb movement: he was forced to spend most of his existence in an iron lung, a tubular contraption that adjusted the air pressure around O’Brien’s body every three seconds to facilitate breathing. Nevertheless, through pluck and force of will, O’Brien put himself through U.C Berkeley, and eventually established himself as a writer.

Although life was a daily struggle, O’Brien’s caustic yet charming, self-deprecating humor, his candor and his active, inquisitive mind won him friends and supporters. But there was a terrible hole in his life –no physical intimacy, no sex, no romance. As he approached his late thirties, this lacuna preyed on his mind. He felt less than human, incomplete. O’Brien’s striving for such an experience, for self-esteem and for his humanity is the core of The Sessions.

  

All of this could make for a pretty somber, or at the least a very demanding picture. But while the depiction is both touching and thought-provoking, the tone of The Sessions is light, humorous even. The main part of the story is taken from O’Brien’s 1990 autobiographical article “On Seeing A Sex Surrogate,” which is, in fact, how he determined to try and deal with his problem.

John Hawkes, as Mark O’Brien, is a wonder in a very demanding role, balancing a realistic physical portrayal of this seriously disabled man with a nuanced rendering of his sardonic self-referential, almost Woody Allen-ish manner, along with O’Brien’s emotional vulnerability, his poetic outlook, his hope, his fears, and his glowing humanity. The only previous performances by Hawkes that I recall are his vivid portrayals of gaunt, creepy guys in Winter’s Bone (2010)(meth-dealing Uncle Teardrop) and Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene (2011)(abusive, criminal cult leader); but here, his portrayal of this gentle, soulful poet is totally convincing.

Helen Hunt is equally outstanding in a very different but equally demanding role as Cheryl, the

surrogate/therapist who introduces this 38 year old man to physical intimacy and sex - something he has never experienced, and about which he harbors much curiosity and anxiety. Cheryl’s work with Mark is the core of this story, of course. Hunt is required to perform in the altogether for a good portion of the film, and she manages to do so frankly and unselfconsciously. Given the subject matter, you might think this would come off as tawdry or bizarre, but not at all. In fact, just as her character must put Mark at ease in a fraught and awkward situation, so too are we put at ease, as her sessions with Mark seem perfectly natural. At 50, Hunt looks damn good, but there nothing lascivious or prurient here; just a sparkling performance.

The developing relationship between Cheryl and Mark is wonderful - and instructive. How important is intimacy? Early on, when Cheryl runs her fingers through Mark's hair, commenting on how beautiful it is, Mark is reduced to tears. No one has ever told him he was beautiful, no one has offered him such an intimate gesture before.

In a key supporting role, William H. Macy shines as Father Brendan, Mark O'Brien's confessor and friend. When O'Brien confides in his priest about the possibility of engaging a surrogate, opens up about his intellectual and emotional yearnings and deep-seated apprehensions, and asks Brendan for his opinion, "as a friend", whether engaging in sex under these circumstances would be a sin in the eyes of God, Macy beautifully reveals Brendan's own moral and religious dilemma as he struggles to answer. Father Brendan is far from a strict constructionist (this is, after all, mid-1980’s Berkeley), but we are, he notes, talking about fornication - and, given that money is involved, how is this different from prostitution? Compassion and humanism prevail: "I think He will give you a pass on this," he eventually responds. Macy's physiognomy has rarely been put to better use.

 

The supporting cast is excellent as well, particularly Moon Bloodgood,  as one of O’Brien’s attendants,

and Adam Arkin as Cheryl’s husband.

Writer/Director Ben Lewin conveys O’Brien’s circumstances with sympathy but without a hint of condescension.  The tone of the picture hovers between wry humor and compassionate story-telling, in appropriate proportions. O’Brien’s point of view, as delivered by Hawkes in dialogue and occasional voice-over, is pitch perfect – much of it excerpted from O’Brien’s own writings.

But despite the light touch, this is not a cotton candy biography. O’Brien’s anguish, isolation, anger and loneliness all come through, side-by-side with his acute perception, sense of humor, humanity and poetic sensibility. More than anything, O’Brien wanted love and companionship – just like the rest of us.  It was just much, much harder for him – in his iron lung – to achieve this. Eventually he succeeded. 

I felt both uplifted and appreciatively sad at the poignant conclusion of this movie.

Check it out.

Available on DVD/Bluray via Netflix or Redbox;

Also worthwhile is the short (36 minutes) documentary: Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, winner of the 1997 Academy Award for Best Documentary – Short Subject, available from Amazon Instant Video (but see The Sessions first).

A few relevant (and lovely) poems by Mark O’Brien:

Breathing

The Morning Routine

Love Poem to No-One in Particular

            [featured prominently in The Sessions]

Let me touch you with my words

for my hands lie limp as empty gloves


let my words stroke your hair


slide down your back


and tickle your belly

for my hands, light and free flying as bricks

ignore my wishes and stubbornly refuse to carry out my quietest desires

let my words enter your mind

bearing torches

admit them willingly into your being


so they may caress you gently

within