4/5 stars

We laid back on the sofa of the good Austrian doctor over a hundred years ago, and from these encounters he and his colleagues were able to bring about a new age of sexual awakening.  Transference is briefly mentioned in The Sessions, when Helen Hunt’s therapist character is starting to see the sparks crackle with her and John Hawkes character, based on real life polio survivor, Mark O’Brien.  The walls of professionalism begin to crumble, and how could they not given Hunt’s profession as a sex surrogate.

When did we become so used to Hollywood showing us impromptu, passionate intercourse as the culminating romantic conjugation between lovers?  Sessions’ affecting sensitivity to the wishes of a paralyzed man who after 38 years finally decides virginity is not a status he wants to take to the grave is what makes the film extraordinary.  Sure you will feel awkward, but I defy any viewer who never experienced an intimate moment in all of its confusion and miscommunication to speak against the rest of us watching in complete solace a man travel down the perilous road to physically expressed love.

Oh and the film is much more.  Mark wrote poetry to the women he loved.  This practice should not be made mandatory, as there are many ways to approach expressing one’s affection, but to watch it transform his relationships raises the picture to a triumph.  While reading his poetry, these women understand the nature of his attraction is more than satisfying insecurity.  Maybe we have become too jaded to accept that.

Lenhardt Stevens