"The Sessions" - movie review



Three out of five possible stubs.


Helen Hunt

John Hawkes

 

         
           I didn’t want this to be a true story because the guy dies in the end. If you don’t know yet how I get all weepy when someone dies you will eventually. But I’m getting way ahead of myself.

          This is the true story of a tender and likeable journalist/poet, Mark O’Brien, who encountered polio as a youngster and, as a result, lived nearly all of his 38 years in an iron lung. While that situation alone makes for a solitary existence, Mark did have a few supportive friends including a neighborhood priest (played by William H. Macy), a couple of kind care givers and another quadriplegic acquaintance.

          Mark is literally helpless to do for himself and is sometimes frustrated and embarrassed when his body responds automatically to touch of others while being bathed, etc. He is a virgin and in this movie begins a quest to have a sexual experience. Enter Helen Hunt as a sex therapist.

          Man, do I admire her willingness to tackle the level of nudity required for the basis of this story. The issue of sex is handled with maturity and that is partly because it’s Helen who is keeping it at a classy level.

          The movie is poignant and funny. Mark interviews people for an article he is doing on sex among disabled people. One of the interviewees said that, with regard to oral sex, he had done so much marijuana before having sex that his taste buds were completely shot so he could do it for a long time. The girls loved his stamina.

          Ultimately, Mark does have a girlfriend of sorts during the last five years of his life. I’ll bet he overcame a lot to have the kind of life he desired in spite of his limitations. One of the last scenes in the movie shows his orange tabby cat sitting atop the huge empty iron lung in his darkened room.