MOVI ES
BY MO LLY TEMP LETO N
SEX AND THE SURROGATE
A tender, candid drama following a paralyzed man’s quest for intimacy
THE SESSIONS :
Written and directed by Ben Lewin. Cinematography,
Geoffrey Simpson. Editing, Lisa Bromwell. Music, Marco Beltrami. Starring John
Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Annika Marks and Robin
Weigert. Fox Searchlight, 2012. R. 95 minutes. 00001 .
fellow Deadwood alum W. Earl Brown), who has the late
shift; and Vera, whose tightly pulled-back braid and ill-
chosen glasses can’t really hide Moon Bloodgood’s
beautiful face. Vera, dry and warm and endlessly
understanding, is Mark’s assistant when he decides he
wants to have sex, and her practical acceptance of Mark’s
desires sets the film’s tone.
But first, Mark, who was raised Catholic, wants to clear
things with Father Brendan (an excellent William H.
Macy). Given Mark’s particular circumstances, is it OK to
have sex outside of marriage? Will God understand?
Brendan, who’s pretty sure he’s out of his depth, is
inclined to say yes.
T
he Sessions, a candid, gentle film about a
paralyzed man’s quest to have sex, walks a
tricky, balanced, grave and funny path that’s all
its own. Struck by polio at a young age, Mark
O’Brien (John Hawkes) lives mostly in an iron
lung; he can get out for a few hours at a time, his
assistant pushing him on a gurney. Three assistants are key
in the film: Amanda (Annika Marks), a pretty young
woman with whom Mark falls in love; Rod (Hawkes’
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THE SESSIONS
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Mark’s confessions — which are more like conversations
— with the priest give The Sessions a winding, lovely
shape, dotted with voiceovers and able to deftly return to
certain moments and scenes. Hawkes, a marvelous actor
who’s been getting his due since his malevolent, unstable
turn in Winter’s Bone, is wry and self-deprecating as Mark,
and Macy, a scrappy and shaggy priest, pulls an earthy
spiritualism to the surface.
And then there’s Helen Hunt, who plays Cheryl Cohen
Greene, the sex therapist who begins to work with Mark.
In a tattered Massachusetts accent and long, flowy child-
of-the-’70s clothes, Hunt is more likable, more believable
and more vulnerable than ever. Writer-director Ben Lewin
and his actors strike just the right balance in the scenes
with Mark and Cheryl, which are often intercut with
scenes in which Vera tries, gently and dryly, to explain to
a perplexed motel clerk exactly what’s going on in these
therapy sessions. His disbelief and skepticism are
understandable, but have no weight next to the intimate,
careful, kind exchange between Cheryl and Mark.
The Sessions has time and patience for all its characters,
whose lives loop and tangle with each other, all woven
around Mark. There are no pat morals to this story; to treat
it like a reminder to appreciate what you have would be to
undermine Mark O’Brien as a character and a person, and
Lewin is too smart for that. Each of the film’s characters
has a complex relationship with intimacy, whether a priest
with his congregation, a wife with her husband or child, a
caregiver with her charge or a man with his lover. Lewin’s
thoughtful screenplay makes his characters equals, even
Susan (Robin Weigert, yet another Deadwood alum), who
appears late in the film as a hospital volunteer who makes
a vital connection with Mark. “I’m not a virgin,” he tells
her impulsively. In Lewin’s film, sex is a different kind of
big deal: complicated, vital, vulnerable, honest — words
that apply to The Sessions as well. ■
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