7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.
Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Annika MarksDrama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Russian: DTS 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
Turkish: Dolby Digital 5.1
DTS is 768 kbps; DD all 448 kbps
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Mandarin (Traditional), Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
While we fearfully await Lars Von Trier's upcoming Nymphomaniac—which, if it's anything like Antichrist, is almost sure to leave
psychological scars—here's a film that's contrastingly healing and hopeful in its frank depiction of human sexuality. The Sessions is based on
the life of the late Mark O'Brien, a Berkeley-area poet and journalist who was stricken with polio as a child and spent most of his life in an iron lung,
almost wholly immobile from the neck down. A virgin at age 38, he decided to hire a sex surrogate to show him the ropes—so to speak—and in 1990
he wrote a moving essay about the experience, taking his readers through each of his sessions while openly questioning himself, his faith, and his
prospects for finding real love, physical, emotional, or otherwise.
The film adaptation of this essay is the work of 66-year-old Australian-American writer/director Ben Lewin—himself a childhood polio survivor—who
made three minor comedies in the 1980s and '90s, helmed a few TV episodes in the early '00s, and then disappeared from the industry for nearly a
decade. If The Sessions is any indication, Lewin is in for a major career resurgence. The film was the biggest acquisition at Sundance last year,
earned supporting actress Helen Hunt an Oscar nomination, and has received near-universal praise for its candid treatment of sex and disability.
John Hawkes as Mark O'Brien
There's not a fault to be found in The Sessions' gorgeous 1080p/AVC-encoded Blu-ray presentation. Shot digitally with the Red One camera system—and what must've been some seriously sharp lenses—the nearly noiseless image has a high level of clarity and great color depth. Even if you've long since become accustomed to high definition material, you may find yourself impressed anew by the sharpness of this picture; closeups, especially, are extremely detailed, with fine facial and clothing textures that are easily visible, even from a normal viewing distance. Look no further than the screenshots, which hold up well to the most ardent pixel-peeping scrutiny. The film's color grading goes for a realistic but slightly amplified look, with creamy warm highlights, strong saturation—see the vivid late 1980s clothing—and contrast that's good and punchy. At no point does the encode impose any distractions on the image there are no compression issues to report, no noise reduction or edge enhancement—none is needed—and no glitches or stutters. The high marks are definitely deserved.
As you'd expect, The Sessions is a quiet, dialogue-driven film, and its lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track reflects that. The mix rarely finds occasion to rise above a conversational, indoor volume, but the sound is consistently clean, clear, and nuanced. The rear speakers are home to low-level ambience—ocean flashbacks, open church acoustics, some street noise—and the entire soundfield is sometimes engaged for the atypically melancholy music by Marco Beltrami, who's usually known for his percussion-heavy action movie scores, a la The Hurt Locker and Live Free or Die Hard. Most importantly, the actors' voices are always full and unmuffled and easy to understand. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, along with Spanish and French dubs and an English descriptive audio track.
I'm not ashamed to admit that the ending of The Sessions just wrecked me. Talk about catharsis—or, in the case of a film about sex, what we might better call release—I was practically sobbing as the credits rolled. The film comes from 66-year-old writer/director Ben Lewin, who came out of nowhere to deliver one of the best and most unexpected indie efforts of 2012. This one earns the oft-used "life-affirming" descriptor, and it features a pair of brilliant performances from John Hawkes and Helen Hunt. 20th Century Fox's Blu-ray release is attractive too, with a stunning high definition presentation and some short but incisive special features. Buy it with a box of tissues—you'll need 'em. (But not, uh, for that.) Highly recommended!
2013
2016
1971
2013
2014
2012
2017
2007
2014
2014
2013
2011
2000-2005
Special Edition
2018
1997
1978
2015
1998
2017
2016