The Sessions

The Sessions (2012) is Ben Lewin's drama you can watch online on iFILM. It draws on the real life of poet and journalist Mark O'Brien, who spent most of his days in an iron lung after polio struck him as a boy. At thirty-six, he decides he does not want to die without ever having been intimate with another person.

John Hawkes plays Mark almost entirely flat on his back, carrying the whole film with a voice and a face and little else. Researching an article about sex and disability, Mark hires a sex surrogate named Cheryl, and Helen Hunt gives the part a frankness and warmth that disarms you. Their appointments aren't really about physiology. They're about trust, embarrassment and two grown adults learning to say the most awkward things out loud. Father Brendan (William H. Macy) hears Mark's confessions with bemused affection on the side.

Lewin, who lived with the effects of polio himself, films all of this with no pity and no swelling strings, just a surprising amount of sharp humor. Hunt landed an Oscar nomination for her work. A quiet, adult film that skips the sentiment where most movies would pour it on. Stream The Sessions (2012) online on iFILM.