Review of The Sessions (2012) by Matt D — 27 May 2013

It's hard for me to fully explain my feelings about 'The Sessions' without sounding like an emotionless jerk. On one hand it is a beautifully touching portrait of a man seeking a missing component in his life and finding it in the most unexpected way. The performances are uniformly great, the script crackles with wit, and never does it bow down to expectations that usually go hand in hand with equally "feel-god movies".

What keeps me from personally hailing it a masterpiece though is a preference of focus. As moving and wonderful as Mark's story is, I found myself more and more distracted with thoughts about Helen Hunt's character's life and how I wanted and needed to know more about it. Early on the film raises the question of how what she does differs from prostitution and although the screenplay makes it very clear that this isn't the case in Mark's situation, the answer was never satisfyingly delivered as a whole. Before beginning her sessions with Mark, she is asked about working with someone who is highly disabled, which leads viewers to believe that this isn't a routine client for her at all. Are most of her clients struggling with sex on a purely emotional level? Is STD testing and protection a part of the routine? How many people does she have sex with in a given day? How do her husband and child deal with her profession beyond the brief instance where Mark sends a love poem to her house?

It is to the film's credit that I was so invested to have these other questions about the character and her profession but at a point it became a detriment and a distraction that left me wanting less of Mark and more of her.

Again, this is a very good film but made me more curious than satisfied.