The Sessions

I forst saw a blub review of this film by David Denby in the 19 Nov 12 issue of NYer by David Denby (Easily the most highly sanctified movie about sex ever made. John Hawkes plays a fortyish man in the nineteen-sixties, a polio victim who lives mostly in an iron lung. He’s never had sex, and he’s desperately horny. After talking it over with his priest (a morose William H. Macy), he hires a sex surrogate, played by a brisk, frequently naked Helen Hunt (looking great, for the record, at forty-nine). Hawkes is inventive and charming, and the writer and director Ben Lewin makes him ruefully funny; the actor is easy to take. The filmmakers know that their therapeutic approach to lust is a bit creepy, and they try to joke their way out of it. They don’t succeed: the sex scenes and the long discussions with the priest—an unhappy voyeur—are all a bit queasy, yet you can’t laugh. The movie is so clammily sensitive and tame that it stifles any strong response. Based on the life and journalism of the late poet Mark O’Brien.)

I did not find Macy morose; on the contrary, he showed a range of emotions, including gloom. He played a priest who, despite his misgivings, talked with a parishioner about sex outside of marriage. As a friend.

Roger Ebert begins his 3.5 stars review: At a time when sex is as common in the movies as automobiles, his need and his attempt to fulfill it requires an awesome dedication. The film is a reminder of how unique sexual intimacy is, and even how ennobling.

And he ends it: "The Sessions" isn't really about sex at all. It is about two people who can be of comfort to each other, and about the kindness that forms between them. This film rebukes and corrects countless brainless and cheap sex scenes in other movies. It's a reminder that we must be kind to one another.

Stephen Holden in the NY Times also liked it: Arriving in a culture steeped in titillation, prurience and pornographic imagery, “The Sessions” is a pleasant shock: a touching, profoundly sex-positive film that equates sex with intimacy, tenderness and emotional connection instead of performance, competition and conquest. There are moments between the client and his surrogate that are so intensely personal that your first instinct may be to avert your eyes. But the actors’ lighthearted rapport allows you to rejoice unashamedly in their characters’ pleasure.