The Sessions is an independent film many won’t get the chance to see, but they should seek it out if it’s playing in a smaller theater they might not ordinarily go to. It’s the real-life story of a paralyzed, Polio-afflicted poet (John Hawkes, so different here than as the ambiguously menacing uncle in Winter’s Bone, in a performance many think could snag him his second Oscar nomination) who begins seeing a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt).
What Works: Sex surrogacy (which isn’t like a prostitute, Hunt explains the difference in the film but it’s basically a sex therapist that works with disabled patients in a very, very hands-on way) is a fascinating topic for a film, that, somehow, hasn’t been dealt with yet. The movie scores immediate points for originality. It’s not just a “very serious Oscar bait” movie about someone who’s handicapped, but one that gets you to ask “What’s it really like to live most of your life in an iron lung?” It doesn’t just show you the day-to-day routine of Hawkes’s character. It gets you to feel it, the one thousand tiny frustrations (imagine if your cat bristled past your nose and you couldn’t scratch it) that pile up but never defeat this funny, warm, ultimately good-hearted individual.
Hunt is fearless in a performance that refuses to get sentimental. She’s dry, perceptive, and a little too clinical to fully fall in love with (as is appropriate, her sex surrogate is married, after all). But the best thing this movie has going for it is John Hawkes. You really do fall for him. His real-life take on the 40-year-old-virgin is vulnerable without ever losing his devilish sense of humor. You can get why women would be drawn to him. By never playing this disabled man (whose life can’t help but be lonely and a touch sad) as a fully-real and charming person, Hawkes is doing something so new it’s practically revolutionary. His quest to become a fully functioning adult (sexual hangups, preferences, activity and all) takes on the struggle of one man limited by his own body to have a real life. By the end, it’s not humanly possible to be rooting against him.
What Doesn’t Work: William H. Macy is a talented, talented actor but the entire subplot featuring him as Hawkes’s priest and main confidante never really gels into the rest of the movie. The entire movie is about one man’s sexual awakening and how that can, really, be an awakening into a real life but the movie doesn’t quite bridge the gap between his spiritual pursuits and his sexual hunger.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Why split hairs with such an excellent little movie that few people will watch? Go see it, and feel better about yourself afterwards.