The Sessions (***1/4)

The most notable thing about this small drama isn’t that the main character (John Hawkes) is severely handicapped, but that it so sensitively captures sexual inexperience from a male perspective.

That the story comes from a magazine article called “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate,” published by poet Mark O’Brien, explains the judiciously narrow focus of the movie. That its writer-director, Ben Lewin, whose primary credits are 1980s and 1990s Australian features, has captured O’Brien’s experience so ably may also have to do with Lewin’s having had, like O’Brien, childhood polio, though with less severe consequences.

In O’Brien’s case, the effect of the polio was virtual paralysis; yet, unlike a paralyzed person, he retained feeling throughout his body. One almost expects a handicapped character on screen to be feisty, as in My Left Foot, or cantankerous, like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Perhaps the contrast between the boldness of personality and the physical passivity is appealing. But O’Brien has a gentle personality; he’s reluctant to fire his caretaker, who’s competent, but unpleasant.

Hawkes, who plays this gentle man, is clearly one who is really able to embody striking different characters. If I hadn’t seen the name, I’d have failed to recognize him from his creepy turns in Winter’s Bone and Marcy May Martha Marlene. As the surrogate, Helen Hunt has her best role since 1997’s As Good As It Gets; while she does not have the obvious acting challenge of playing a handicapped person, she embodies the matter-of-fact attitude and comfort level with nudity and sexuality that such a person would need to have.

It is in providing a kind of intimacy, not merely sex, that differentiates the surrogate from a prostitute, and this is best thought of as a movie about intimacy as well as sex. The disability and physical limitations are certainly presented, but Lewin underplays the tragic aspects of O’Brien’s existence. His unusual friendship with a priest (William H. Macy), with whom he has frank discussions that test the boundaries of traditional church teachings, is a frequent source of humor throughout the movie. The achievement of this movie is not to make O’Brien into an inspirational figure, but to make him seem normal.

IMDb link

viewed 10/3/12 7:30 at Ritz east [PFS screening] and reviewed 11/3–4/12