Running head: APA REVIEW OF THE 2012 FILM THE SESSIONS!

Introduction to APA Publication Style in the Form of a Review of the Motion Picture The Sessions Faraz Hussain Illinois Institute of Technology

The Sessions: An APA Review!

Abstract The Sessions, formerly titled The Surrogate, is a 2012 lm directed by Ben Lewin and featuring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy. Adapted from a series of autobiographical articles written by Mark O'Brien, it relates his often fumbling, always sincere attempts at exploring his nascent sexuality at the age of 38, having been conned to an iron lung after beating polio when he was six years old.

The Sessions: An APA Review!

Review Based largely on an article written byMark O'Brienentitled On Seeing a Sex Surrogate for the literary magazine The Sun (1990), the lm The Sessions (Levine & Lewin, 2012) hews fairly closely to a realistic and sensitive portrayal of three otherwise very touchy subjectssex, disability, and 'sex and disability'. O'Brien wrote that article over the course of four years, having been inspired to pursue intimacy in his own life while researching an earlier article on sex surrogates and people with disabilities. Deviating from his usual chill-inducing performances as a Mansonesque cult leader in Martha Marcy May Marlene (Campos & Durkin, 2011) or Teardropthe creepy meth head uncle from the Ozarks in Winter's Bone (Rosellini & Granik, 2010)Hawkes virtually and literally transformed himself to play the thoroughly nice andunreservedly lovable O'Brien.The accomplished Hawkes took pains to portray O'Brien in his natural, perpetually horizontal position. Despite being more than a full foot taller than the person he was portraying, one would be forgiven for being unable to tell the difference, due to the contortions to which Hawkes subjects his body within the connes of the iron lung in which he is encased for the majority of the lms running time. In order to approximate the curvature of the spine that O'Brien had developed after spending a stationary lifetime in his iron prison, Hawkes would place a soccer ball-sized piece of foam beneath his own every time the script required for him to be entombed in the iron lung. He learned to typewrite and operate a TDD phone using just a stick held in his mouth. Besides such feats of physical delity, all the actorsfrom the two leads playing O'Brien and the surrogate, to the nurses, doctors, priests and friendsapproached their roles

The Sessions: An APA Review!

with an emotional resonance and sensitivity generally lacking in most Hollywood productions. The overarching theme of The Sessions was O'Brien's understandable preoccupation with his lack of experience with intimacy, his eventual mastery of it, and his ultimately transcending it and nding love. In the process of doing so, the moviegoer was able to accompany him to visits to the therapists, job counselors, nurses and the various others that comprise a part of the day-to-day life of a disabled person. O'Brien faced mobility and social anxiety issues that caused him develop a selfeffacing, sardonically humorous and highly cerebral approach to life, which would serve him well when dealing with the inevitable setbacks that life dealt his way. As a journalist and poet who was restricted to tapping out his words one letter at time by means of a stick clenched in his jaw, he still churned out copy at a fearsome, prolic pace. A succession of private duty nurses, one of whom was portrayed in the movie by an actual RN with whom he did not always see eye-to-eye, and the other by the severe Moon Bloodgood, was responsible for taking care of the humdrum business of everyday living. O'Brien had the good fortune of having gone to college atUC Berkeley, the alma mater of Ed Robertswhose pioneering disability rights activism in the 60s had paved the way for a campus atmosphere where being bound to a wheelchair was no longer seen as a disabled student's primary identifying characteristic. This served O'Brien well for the rest of his life, in his reporting and poetry, and provided him a hardwon equanimity in dealing with his ever-deterioratingcircumstances. The effects of polio that he had suffered in infancy, which had been mitigated but not completely treated, continued to affect O'Brien for the remainder of his life. He

The Sessions: An APA Review!

suffered undue but understandable stress stemming from his sexual inexperience and xation on losing his virginity before his 'expiry date'. Despite being blessed with a charming personality and having the benet of working with the very compassionate and nurturing surrogate played by Helen Hunt, it took O'Brien a while to nd rm footing and establish a comfortable rapport with her. Despite his mixed attempts at romancing them, by the end of the movie, O'Brien had won the love and undying affection of three women, as well as of his caretakers, editors and friends. Thanks to a star turn by William H. Macy, who plays the Catholic priest that O'Brien seeks out for moral guidance vis--vis engaging the services of a sexual surrogate, the movie has healthy doses of God, religion, guilt and comic relief. It is to Macy, who is suffering in silence with his own priestly vows of chastity, that O'Brien delivers one of the best lines of the lm:"I believe in a God with a sense of humor. I would nd it absolutely intolerable not to be to able blame someone for all this." The Sessionsalso casts into stark relief the modern preoccupation with sex against the predicament of a man who has always thought himself incapable of consummating his most basicdesires.Watching the movie makes one feel by turns grateful to be alive and able-bodied, churlish about being aggrieved by minor inconveniences and ashamed of behaving in ways reminiscent, by comparison, of The Princess and the Pea; to thoroughly reevaluate my own sex life, or the lack thereof; and puts one in awe of the fullness of purpose and accomplishment of this quiet, funny, unassuming man.

The Sessions: An APA Review!

References

OBrien, M. (1990, May). On Seeing a Sex Surrogate. The Sun, 174, 35-41. Levine, J. (Producer), & Lewin, B. F. (Director). (2012). The Sessions [Motion picture]. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures. Campos, A. (Producer), & Durkin, S. (Director). (2011). Martha Marcy May Marlene [Motion picture]. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures Rosellini, R. (Producer), & Granik, D. (Director). (2010). Winters Bone [Motion picture]. United States: Roadside Attractions. Andersen, H. C., & Stevens, J. (1982). The Princess and the Pea. New York, NY: American Psychological Association.