The Sessions, Cert 15, 94 mins - review

Tale of strange love puts late-flowering star in frame for an Oscar
Helen Hunt in The Sessions
17 October 2012

Pretty weird. Weirdly pretty. US actor John Hawkes used to be a well kept secret.

Mindblowingly sweet in tiny indie movie Me And You And Everyone We Know, he showed off a darker side in Winter’s Bone and the sleeper hit Martha Marcy May Marlene. Now, at 53, he’s tipped for a best actor nomination at the Oscars. Think of him as the new Steve Buscemi.

It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Boston poet, journalist and ardent Catholic Mark O’Brien, a real-life figure paralysed by polio and guilt who decided to lose his virginity (age 38), and wrote a wry, graphic article about the “sex surrogate” who in six sessions made that dream come true.

O’ Brien was prone to hopeless crushes. Hawkes — always shrimpy — is skeletal here, and his permanently erect chest sends just the right message. His O’Brien is Christ-like, boyish, desperate. No wonder care workers dote on this man. No wonder they run a mile when he declares his love.

The redoubtable Helen Hunt plays Cheryl, the no-nonsense suburbanite who takes him in hand. She says what she does is very different from prostitution. It certainly involves more paperwork.

Director/scriptwriter Ben Lewin (a polio survivor) knows O’Brien’s deadpan humour is a big pull and uses plenty in the first-person voiceover. The Sessions only feels flimsy — even a tad smug — when we witness things the main character isn’t privy too, ie the private lives of the various women he adores. As for the ending, it’s cheesier than a Wotsit. Yet this is a must-see movie.

O’Brien, who died in 1999, waged his own kind of war on repression. After the screening I heard an usherette say, “Who’d want to watch a thing like that? It’s disgusting.” The lines are drawn; let battle commence!

The 56th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, runs until October 21 (bfi.org.uk)

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