The Sessions (2012) on Netflix
R20121h 35mBiographyComedyDrama
In 1988, Mark O'Brien, a poet paralyzed by polio who lives in an iron lung, wants to lose his virginity. His priest, Father Brendan, helps him contact sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.2/1045,179 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Berkeley, California, 1988. Mark O'Brien is a poet and journalist of 38 who has used an iron lung since polio struck him at six. He has no use of his muscles from the neck down, though he still has sensation, and attendants see to his needs around the clock. He is a devout Catholic, and he tells his priest, Father Brendan, that he wants the physical side of love, perhaps outside marriage. A sex therapist points him to Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a professional sex surrogate, who sets a limit of six sessions. Cheryl has a husband and a son, and this is her first patient of his kind. Their work together involves his attendants, his faith, and her family.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sessions (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- O'Brien was a journalist and poet who was paralyzed from the neck down by polio since his childhood and breathed with the support of an iron lung; at age 38 he hired sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene to help him lose his virginity.
- To simulate O'Brien's posture, Hawkes used a soccer-ball-sized piece of foam laid onto the left side of his back to curve his spine; consequently some of his organs began to migrate, and his chiropractor told him his spine had lost movement as a result.
- The film received criticism for the fact that while Hunt spent much of her time onscreen completely naked, Hawkes always remained covered; director Ben Lewin said showing an erect penis would have guaranteed an NC-17 rating rather than an R, severely limiting the film's viewership.
- The Sessions premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival as The Surrogate, where the cast received several standing ovations, and Fox Searchlight Pictures immediately acquired the film, paying $6 million for worldwide rights, a fee considered unusually high.
- Writer and director Ben Lewin, a polio survivor himself, first read about O'Brien's experiences with a sex surrogate in O'Brien's article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate", which he stumbled onto while researching sex and the disabled for a semi-autobiographical sitcom project.
SPOILER
O'Brien's life was chronicled in the 1996 short documentary Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien, directed by Jessica Yu, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short; he died in 1999 at the age of 49.
