Review of The Sessions (2012) by Hoops2448 — 26 Feb 2013

A Dramedy based entirely around a middle aged man attempting to have sex for the first time. The twist, he spends most of his time in an iron lung because he contracted Polio in his youth. It's a picture that grips from moment to moment but leaves you empty on finishing.

Mark O'Brian (John Hawkes) has been lying on his back for almost his entire life. He decides to visit a sex therapist to finally lose his virginity. However he is only allowed a limited number of sessions (suddenly that titles starting to make a whole load of sense now) and he really doesn't want this journey to end.

Mercifully it does. The Sessons does despite my disappointment have several excellent qualities and almost all of them are the performances. The casting is excellent for the most part with ace performances from Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H Macy.

In this regard the film succeeds as these characters and their interactions with one another feel real and engrossing. However the scenes are let down by a script that isn't really up to the quality of the acting as it not only treats the viewer like an indiot, repeating things over and over as if we didn't get it the first time but its also that the dialogue is so incredibly stiff and lifeless as if written without cognitive thought.

Another problem lies in connecting these scenes together, something the film fails at spectacularly as it does it through the characters of Marks many carers who I found myself caring very little about.

In fact the only real casting problem is Moon Bloodgood who is either horribly miscast or woefully bad, I just haven't decided which yet. The scenes in between sessions are dull, uninvolving and most of all frustrating as they feel motionless.

In fact these scenes stop what little pace or flow the film has while having absolutely nothing of value to say. Overall the sessions is more disappointing than terrible but its on the boundary between the two at best and what keeps it from tipping over is the bold performances which are worthy of a much better film.