The Sessions - When Words Touch

Since contracting polio as a boy, Mark O`Brien (John Hawkes) has had to spend much of his life in the Iron Lung. But at 38, the journalist and poet decides he no longer wants to let his disability define his life and that he finally wants to lose his virginity. With the blessing of his priest (William H. Macey), Mark hires sex therapist Cheryl Cohen-Greene (Helen Hunt) to guide him to the goal of his dreams in a set number of sessions. But in the course of these meetings, the conversations and physical closeness increasingly soften the professional boundaries between Mark and Cheryl, and it becomes clear that not only hands, but also words can touch in a very special way.

The Sessions - When Words Touch is based on the essay On Seeing a Sex Surrogate, which Mark O`Brien had published in the 80s in an American magazine. Based on the article, O`Brien's autobiography and on the basis of numerous conversations with his partner Susan Fernbach and with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, filmmaker Ben Lewin has created a very moving film that strikes the perfect balance between life-affirming humor and emotional drama.

John Hawkes, who has made a name for himself as a character actor in such films as Winter`s Bone and Martha Marcy May Marlene, delivers a performance as impressive as it is wonderful with his portrayal, limited almost entirely to his facial expressions, of a severely disabled man who has never lost his optimism and sense of humor despite his difficult life situation. His performance is not aimed at making us feel sorry for Mark, but at letting us be infected by his zest for life and his charm. And he succeeds more than believably.

What makes the film really special, however, is its, especially for an American film, completely relaxed approach to the subject of sex and the needs of disabled people, which are often regarded as taboo. The conversations about sex as well as the nude scenes are staged in a completely natural way, without being obviously provocative or voyeuristic. In this, Helen Hunt in particular, at almost 50, sheds her clothes with exactly the natural unbending that is necessary to make her portrayal of the sex therapist believable. Lewin and his actors circumnavigate every threatening cliff in the very sensitively staged scenes that would have made the film embarrassing, uptight or even ridiculous with flying colors.

The Sessions - When Words Touch is very sad in many moments. Especially since Hawkes makes it clear with his looks that Mark actually doesn't long for sex so much as simply for love and some kind of normal relationship that will never be possible for him, there is a certain heaviness over the whole film, which Lewin, however, manages to break up through the purposeful use of restrained but quite wonderful humor. In the end, the moving story of Mark O`Brien, who died in 1999, is not a depressing, unwieldy art film, but an enchanting feel-good film that not only touches the heart, but also the laughing muscles. And for that it gets a more than deserved: Worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp