“The Sessions” a Most Unusual Film
By: Skip Sheffield
“The Sessions” is a most unusual film. Before I go any further let me add that I think it has Oscar-worthy performances by stars John Hawkes and Helen Hunt and co-star William H. Macy as well as writer-director Ben Lewin.
What makes “The Sessions” so unusual is that it is about surrogate sex, yet it is not really about the act of sex. It is about friendship, love and redemption. Oh, and it is based on the true story of poet Mark O’Brien, who was confined to an iron lung for most of his life due to the destructive effects of polio he contracted at age 6.
The amazing John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone”) plays Mark O’Brien. Though Mark is in an iron lung he can still write, using a pencil clenched between his teeth. Mark requires constant care, but he does get out of his iron lung and his house, thanks to his helpers. A devout Catholic, the Berkeley, California resident regularly goes to confessional with his parish priest, Father Brendan (William H. Macy).
Father Brendan is as an unusual a priest as Mark O’Brien is a polio survivor. There is nothing Mark can’t tell Father Brendan. When he tells him he longs to experience sexual union with a woman, and is thinking of hiring a sexual surrogate, Father Brendan understands and gives his blessing.
Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt) is the woman Mark hires. She lays down strict rules. There will be no more than six sessions; no socializing other than the therapy, and perish the thought of becoming emotionally involved. Cheryl is married and her husband knows what she does, but there are limits.
Cheryl is infinitely patient with Mark, who though a paraplegic, can achieve erection and orgasm.
Director Lewin, a polio survivor himself, uses a light touch in the awkward, tentative sexual encounters. “The Sessions” is actually quite funny at times. Fumbling sex is after all, pretty funny.
John Hawkes went to great lengths to approximate the shriveled, twisted physique of his character. Helen Hunt is warm and completely selfless as Cheryl, and dignified even when she bares all. Helen Hunt is 49 and beautiful, both in face and body, but it is her love and understanding that moves the viewer. This is the best performance of her career.
“The Sessions” is sad too. Losing his virginity at age 38 gave Mark more self-confidence and desire to have a relationship with an ordinary woman. Perhaps because of this he defied odds by living until age 49. Granted it was a short life, but “The Sessions” dramatically proves life can be fulfilling even under the harshest of handicaps,
Four stars
“Silver Linings Playbook” is about a handicap not of the body but of the mind.
Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) has just been released after eight months in a psychiatric facility. A high school English teacher, his melt down has cost him his job, his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) and his house. Pat is picked up by his ever-loving mother Dolores (Jackie Weaver), who takes him back to the Philadelphia home he grew up in.
His father Pat Sr. (Robert Di Niro) isn’t thrilled, but he tries to give his oddball son some space. Pat Jr. went through some kind of 12-step program called Excelsior and now he is a fitness addict, jogging around the neighborhood with his upper torso wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag.
On one of his jogs Pat encounters Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a girl with problems of her own. Tiffany is also recently divorced and down in the dumps. She is mutually acquainted with Pat’s ex-wife, and when Pat asks her to deliver a letter to Nikki (she has a restraining order against Pat), Tiffany agrees.
In return for that favor, Pat agrees to take a stab at Tiffany’s request for him to be her dance partner in a local competition.
Writer-director David O. Russell (“The Fighter”) has thrown a little of everything into this feel-good comedy. Pat’s family are rabid fans of the Philadelphia Eagles. If you are a partisan, you will love that.
Jennifer Lawrence made her spectacular screen debut at age 19 in “Winter’s Bone” with John Hawkes. Lawrence has an irresistible, vulnerable, yet scrappy appeal that serves her character well.
Bradley Cooper is enormously earnest and naïve as Pat, and therefore quite funny. Di Niro has relaxed a bit as the apoplectic pop, and Jacki Weaver makes the perfect mother lioness. Emotional illness is nothing to laugh at, but “Silver Linings” makes recovery most entertaining.
Three stars
Outre Theatre Throws a “Wild Party”
Boca Raton has a new theater company and Andrew Lippa’s “The Wild Party” inaugurates the season Friday, Nov. 23 in the black box theater of Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center.
Outre Theatre Company is the name of the new group. Its slogan is “Thinking Outside the Stage.”
Artistic director Skye Whitcomb and managing director Nori Tecosky present “The Wild Party,” which retells John Moncure March’s poem of 1928 and a time of sex, jazz, booze and vaudeville performers Burrs and Queenie. The couple quarrels and Queenie decides to throw a party to humiliate Burrs. The cast includes Mark A. Harmon, Sharyn Peoples, Emile Paap, Ben Solomor, Julia Tinaya, Alvaro D’Amico, Giordan Diaz, Courtney Poston, Mickey Jaiven, Luis E. Mora and Kaitlyn O’Neill, with Mark Brown-Rodriguez as Black, Christina Groom as Kate, Sabrina Gore as Queenie and Tom Anello as Burrs.
Shows are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday through Dec. 9. Call 954-300-2149 or go to www.outretheatrecompany.com.
