Sessions

[CBStew]

I finally saw this.  I heard about the "full frontal  (and backtal) nudity of Helen Hunt.  As a red blooded American boy I was curious.  Yes, Helen gets naked often.  She is an attractive woman. 
But she is not an erotic person.  That is strange to say in the context of this movie, which, after all, is about getting laid.  Even if you haven't seen the movie you know that it is about a fortyish man who is desperate to "know a woman in the biblical sense".  Sound familiar?  No, Steve Carroll is not in this movie.  John Hawkes plays a not quite quadriplegic  polio victim who is confined to an iron lung for 20 hours a day.  He is a poet. He is also a devout and guilt ridden Catholic, who seeks permission of his priest to have sex out of wedlock before he dies.  He has the very teenaged boy characteristic of falling in love with any woman who smiles at him.  The movie is very touching and for me not at all sensual.  Helen Hunt is a sex therapist and surrogate.  Her personality and naked body make sex clinical, and anything but sexy.  But the playing out of this "based on a true story" extremely touching.  Richard H. Macy, as the priest, has one of those roles where he can and does steal every scene that he is in.  At one point he gives his priestly speech on the meaning of love.   "Love is a journey."  "Yes." says the Hawke character", "Go on."  "That's it." says the priest, "That's all I've got."
The message of this story is empathy.  Any man who was once a teenager (that just about covers all of us doesn't it?) can relate to the protagonist's goal, but thankfully few have had the issues that he had.  Adam Arkin plays Hunt's husband.  He supports her in her work, but draws the line when she exhibits "feelings" for her clients.  Helen Hunt's character is given gravitas as a therapist and after each "session" she dictates notes into a recorder.  I wondered to myself what the purpose of that was?  She isn't a doctor, psychologist, or a nurse practioner.  Who is going to read these notes?  But that is a minor quibble.  The movie is worth watching.