For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
Mark O’Brien was a real-life poet and sometimes journalist who was paralyzed from the neck down due to polio. He lived in an iron lung and decided at the age of thirty-eight he wanted to lose his virginity.
The new film from writer and director Ben Lewin, The Sessions, concentrates on that part of Mark’s life, and while it’s a straight-forward, fairly uncomplicated plot, it entertains and surprises in ways you may never have considered.
“I’m probably close to my used-by date,” states Mark (John Hawkes) to his priest, Father Brendan (William H. Macy). His priest advises Mark that perhaps he should seek the help of a sex surrogate, which with the help of his new caregiver (Moon Bloodgood) is exactly what Mark does.
Now, I’ll admit, before seeing The Sessions, I had never heard of a sex surrogate, at least, not one as portrayed in the film. Helen Hunt plays real life surrogate Cheryl Cohen Greene, and it becomes her job to ease Mark through the trials and tribulations of having sex for the first time. “I’m not a prostitute,” she states. “There is a difference.”
Having seen John Hawkes play characters that are often less than savory it’s quite refreshing to see him portraying such a thoroughly engaging character for a change. Plus, when you consider all of the Mark’s physical limitations, Hawkes’ performance is all the more remarkable. “I may be time consuming,” he tells his priest before Confession, “But I’m worth the trouble.”
Because the center of the film revolves around Mark losing his virginity and little else, The Sessions fails in telling us anything else of the life of this California-based poet and I found myself wanting to know a lot more, but what we are left with is still a thoroughly entertaining portrait of a likable character and the relationship that develops with his equally likable surrogate. And believe or not, it’s very funny.
