Everybody Wants Some
All young men look forward to losing their virginity. It is one of those things that drives us. Actually, I can't think of a single thing that occupies our brains more at any point in our lives, once we hit the neighborhood of twelve-years-old. Writer-director Ben Lewis' "The Sessions" examines the male view of this momentous occasion from a slightly different perspective. Based on the life of the writer Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes), a polio-stricken man who is 38, it portrays a man confined to an iron lung for the majority of every day. Mark is a religious man who attends church regularly. He knows that sex outside of marriage is against the basic rules of his religion, but he wants it. His solution is to seek out the advice of his priest, Father Brendan (William H. Macy). Brendan has never run into anything vaguely similar as this request for advice. After a short period of confusion, he reasons that God will understand under these particular circumstances.
Mark can't walk on his own and is pretty much confined to a gurney when he is not in his iron lung. He requires a personal assistant to get him place to place and a few different young ladies serve him in that capacity. The decided upon solution is to find him a sex therapist. Since this is Berkeley in 1988, it is not particularly difficult to find one. Cheryl (Helen Hunt) is the lady he is introduced to and she is bright, friendly, and quite attractive. We see all of Ms. Hunt in a few scenes and she does not disappoint in substance or looks. The deal is that she will have six sessions with him, with the goal being his losing his virginity.
What makes "The Sessions" work is the straightforward way everything is dealt with. No one wrings their hands with phony discomfort. There is no false conflict injected. The only conflict is Mark fighting against his own body. There are no real bad guys here. Everyone has signed on to the program, and despite the lack of exterior obstacles, the result is quietly satisfying.
Hawkes does a nice job of making us believe that Mark must have been a joy to know, despite a handicap that could easily have crushed a weaker man. "The Sessions" is not great, but it is a real pleasure to watch.
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Source: http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/The-Sessions.shtml
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