The Sessions (2012)

When the Academy Award nominations come in, 2012 Sundance-Festival-favorite “Sessions” will be mentioned. For sure. But when the awards go out, it will be left empty. This is a drama destined to become movie trivia and “Did you ever see?” probing among die-hard, art-house cinemasts, loved by a few, unknown to most. 

That’s a shame. This is a smart, amazingly uplifting, funny, poignant, and, yes, heartbreaking adult tale of a man (John Hawkes, from “Winter’s Bone”) attempting to get laid despite his own body being left motionless from the neck down after being stricken by polio as a child. (He has full sensitivity. His muscles do not work.)

Based on a true story, “Sessions” focuses Berkley, Calif., resident Mark O’Brien’s desire and need to lose his virginity before he dies, and he knows he won’t live terribly long. His sell by date is approaching fast. Mark spends his nights in an iron lung, a massive tube that alleviates breathing problems, and his every waking moment is accompanied by an oxygen tank for much the same purpose. I said he cannot move, but he can get an erection, and, like any living being, longs for intimacy. 

Here’s the beauty of this film, small in the best of ways: Newcomer writer/director Ben Lewin -– himself partially crippled by polio -- refuses to go sentimental or booming give-us-a-big-cry movie soft accompanied by a swelling orchestral score from loud Hollywood. 

Instead, he beautifully lays out the film with clear-eyed, sobering journalistic precision. O’Brien himself was a poet and journalist. The mood, the smallness, fits. Perfectly.

Before the opening credits are through, Mark has finished university (in footage of the real O’Brien) and now works as a freelance writer, typing and dialing the phone with a stick inserted in his mouth. When he makes a house visit for an interview, as he does in any outside trip, a medical assistant pushes O’Brien along as he lays flat prone on a gurney. 

His latest paid gig: Write about sexuality and the disabled. That assignment gets his own wheels (and libido, and sexual fantasies) spinning. He’s 38, never had sex, and hitting the bars, clubs, and other singles hot spots, is out of the question. 

But a sex surrogate is within the bounds, and O’Brien seeks out Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt, of “As Good As it Gets” fame, and gone too long from cinema screens), a specialist dedicated to physically helping people cope with sexual hang-ups. (If you’re thinking “prostitute,” don’t, and the notion is handled quickly here, in fine form.) 

As O’Brien explore his sexuality, he also wrestles with his faith and what God thinks of his struggle. If He would forgive O’Brien’s curiosity. O’Brien full believes and holds no anger at God, and his faith journey is also handled sober-minded serious, no mockery. Nicely.

“I’m not getting married anytime soon,” O’Brien says, I paraphrase, to his priest, played by William H. Macy. Their talks are fascinating, to anyone of faith, or not of faith. (Macy is so damn good here. Although right-wingers will cringe at his priest. Hey, this is Berkley.)

O’Brien and Greene’s first sexual encounters are tinged with all the possible awkwardness of anyone’s first time, cranked a thousand fold as he can’t move. These scenes are funny, sad, beautiful. O’Brien carries a lifelong lack of physical contact, so he instantly falls for Greene. In his mind he sees her as love of his life. Except she is married, with a teenage son. 

I’ll stop with the film synopsis. This is a true story, if you know the outcome, I’ll just bore you. If you don’t know the story, I’ll make you mad. 

This is an adult film, no holds barred, with graphic nudity and sexual content, but it’s no porn film. The sex, as with O’Brien’s faith struggle, is dealt with clear-eyed and exact, no frills, no tricks. More so, it’s sex as human contact, an absolute need for intimacy and love. This is a story of one man under unique experiences few of us can ever imagine, but he’s a man like us nonetheless. 

Lewin doesn’t need to push his story down our throat with sugar, he lets his actors –- both deserving of Oscars, especially Hawkes -– act, and he tells his story with an exactitude that 95 percent of Hollywood could not possibly imagine: There’s a moment when O’Brien faces a life crisis, the 1989 California earthquake knocks out power, and Hawkes’s character does not cry a tear, but shrugs. Accepts. The moment almost seems comedic. 

But it’s not. The scene resounds with the serious realization of a man who knows the darkest laughs.

It’s a simple as this: O’Brien -– as played by Hawkes –- knows his time is limited, and he is making the best of it, hungry for every moment and every experience that others, myself included, take for granted. 

For a film that shrugs off miracles, “Sessions” is its own kind of magic. See it now. A