The Details

The Sessions

John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy

Directed by Ben Lewin

Rated R

Beyond the Weekly

Official Movie Site

IMDb: The Sessions

Rotten Tomatoes: The Sessions

The world does not need any more inspirational dramas about disabled people triumphing over adversity, but The Sessions bypasses that problem by having its disabled protagonist triumph over adversity in order to get laid. The movie is based on the true story of writer Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes), who can move only his head and is mostly confined to an iron lung thanks to a childhood battle with polio, as he seeks out a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) so that he can finally lose his virginity at age 38. Hawkes plays Mark with warmth, humor and vulnerability, and the fact that Mark basically has his life together other than this one important obstacle makes the movie more relatable and less melodramatic. Hunt’s typically brittle and stilted manner makes it tough for her to come off as empathetic, but she still manages some strong chemistry with Hawkes. Mark’s conversations with a hip priest (William H. Macy) he goes to for advice are a little cutesy, but his interactions with the surrogate capture the raw, fumbling emotions of a first-time sexual encounter, regardless of how many body parts someone is capable of moving.