The Sessions

First Hit:  A touching thoughtful film.

In 1980 I audio recorded a conference on sexuality and the handicapped and disabled. It was very eye-opening and enlightening. During the 3 days I learned so much about how sexuality can enter and be embraced fully in a handicapped or disabled person’s life.

Here, the story is around Mark O’Brian (played by John Hawkes) who got polio when he was 8 years old. He wasn’t expected to live very long but now he’s over 35 and he’s still going strong. He lives most of his days in an iron lung in is small apartment and writing poems. He has helpers who moved him from place to place after he got involved in too many accidents with his electric gurney.

During the film he goes through different daytime women helpers, one with whom he falls in love. He’s never had a sexual relationship and decides he wants one and asks his priest Father Brendan (played by William H. Macy) if it would be OK – sex out of marriage.

He begins to work with a sex therapist named Cheryl (played by Helen Hunt). Here is where the acting becomes phenomenal. All the actors seem to fully embrace this story and their roles with deep compassion. Vera (played by Moon Bloodgood), his latest keeper is matter of fact, direct, and certainly someone I’d trust to be a caretaker. Her interaction with the hotel clerk is great.

Cheryl is beautiful, compassionate and hardened by her current life with a husband who doesn’t do a whole lot. The hardened part is seen around her mouth and the occasional forced smile. Mark is constantly fighting the battle of fear of the unknown and embracing becoming a sexually experienced man.

This film is very well acted by all.

Hawkes is amazing in this role and reflects O’Brian’s fears and limited abilities in an effective way. Macy was superb as the catholic priest whom guides Mark to explore his sexuality (“I think God will give you a pass on this”). Hunt is phenomenal as Cheryl and displays the right touch of vulnerability and factual practical empathy. Also very brave of her to appear fully naked over and over again in this role. As one would expect her own stuff appears and the way she internalizes it is shear talent. Bloodgood is wonderful in her role as caretaker. Ben Lewin wrote a very strong screenplay and also directed this film openly crisp.

Overall: Both educational and powerful in its execution by all actors.

Then She Found Me

First Hit: There are some very funny moments in the film and it was also a well acted dramatic touching story.

Helen Hunt plays April a woman married to Ben (played by Matthew Broderick), a man who just never seemed to grow up.

Helen wants a child so bad but their attempts have been fruitless. Her mother keeps telling her to adopt, there are plenty “of Chinese children looking for a home”. However, April insists on wanting to have the experience of going through childbirth.

April walks into the kitchen one day and Ben says he wants out of the relationship. However, they end up making love one more time. Later that day she meets Frank (played by Colin Firth) whose wife ran out on him, “because he was too much for her”, leaving him to raise both his children. In the parking lot of the school where April works Frank inadvertently comes on to her.

Here the film could have just moseyed along to a predefined conclusion. However life presents challenges: April’s mother dies, then she finds out she was adopted by meeting her birth mother Bernice (played by Bette Midler) who wants to dive right into a relationship with April, discovers she’s pregnant with her to be ex-husband’s child, and is falling in love with Frank all within a couple of weeks.

Again, there could be a smooth ending to this more complicated set-up, however real people get their buttons pushed and this film displays some of these possibilities.

Helen Hunt both acted in and directed this film. She is a wonderful actor and, in her directorial debut, intelligent enough to know how to direct other strong actors, including herself. I loved how the tension in her character was palpable as the film progressed. What surprised me most about this film was complicated and somewhat abrupt set up at the beginning of this story. However, Helen was able to take these pieces and stitch them together with clear direction enticing strong multi-dimensional characters from each of the actors while keeping the story line in focus.

Overall: The film got better and better as it unfolded and in the end it was touching and felt true.