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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/19/2012 : 11:32:20
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Dunno about you, but I'm always a bit wary when I see "based on a true story." There are so many cine-pitfalls trying to condense an unstructured real-life tale into a nice neat package timed to coincide with box-office scheduling.
Happily writer/director Ben Lewin has turned a magazine article by witty, articulate poet and disabled activist Mark O'Brien into a moving, exhilarating film which has been winning awards all over the place.
I kind of remember the short-lived controversy the original article provoked back in 1990, because it involved O'Brien's decision to lose his virginity before he died. Which was, btw, wholly supported by his priest.
The article concentrated on the how. Lewin's film deals with the whys, and provides an opportunity to explore both the surface and deeper relationship between O'Brien and his "sex surrogate."
O'Brien, of course, could only write from his own perspective - engrossing and perceptive though it may be. A polio victim for most of his life, his sharp brain racing inside his iron lung.
With the help of those he trusts a new world of sensation is opened to him. Not deviant, but the normal pleasures which have been denied solely by virtue of his physical condition. Society has always said no to his perfectly natural desires.
It's as though Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson were barred from ever racing, or Stephen Hawkins from studying cosmology and physics.
O'Brien's desires evolve in a series of sessions with Cheryl, a married sex surrogate. Not in any way a prostitute, and with the complete knowledge and blessing of her husband, she enables Mark to understand both intellectually and viscerally what it means to be fully human.
They couldn't be more different, you think. But you'd be wrong.
Lewin, an award-winning film and television director provides the vital compassionate objectivity of a person displaced from Poland after the war and raised in Australia. How the relationship affects both Mark and Cheryl is the emotional engine of his film.
He doesn't have to work overtime to receive extraordinary performances from both John Hawkes and Helen Hunt - with equally wonderful back-up from William H Macy as the priest, and an ensemble cast.
Lewin also chooses a shooting style that provides focus and clarity. And he's shaped his screenplay to engage us every step of the way. I must mention, too, the welcome moments of levity. One of my favorites is a young guy in a wheelchair trying to explain sexual techniques to Mark. "Oral sex," he says, "is a matter of taste."
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 12/19/2012 13:27:38 |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 12/22/2012 : 17:24:33
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Saw it at Sundance last Jan, when it was still called THE SURROGATE. Here's what I said then:
THE SURROGATE**** (Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic, U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting) From the time he was 6, polio confined Mark O�Brien to an iron lung for all but a few hours each day. Yet he gained a fine education and became a well-known writer and poet, all while flat on his back, using a stick in his mouth to compose his work on a keyboard. This movie isn�t about all that, though; it�s already been shown in the Oscar-winning documentary BREATHING LESSONS. This is about O�Brien�s determination, at age 38, to lose his virginity. First, this devout Catholic needs permission from his priest, then he must find and hire a sex surrogate, who will use her body on his behalf. As the ensemble�s special prize indicates, this film is spectacularly acted, by John Hawkes as O�Brien, a wiseass who is still touchingly earnest; Helen Hunt as his tender sexual prescription; William H. Macy as O�Brien�s new priest, who is hilarious facing moral issues that he never expected of clear Catholic dogma; and Moon Bloodgood as a nursing assistant who has some choice scenes with an inquisitive motel manager. Many of us are cheering Hawkes�s development from �what�s-his-face� into a recognizable leading man, although he�s forced to play this role almost completely sideways. This film was snapped up by Fox Searchlight, and I hope it finds a wide audience, but I�m concerned that the amount of nudity � you see every inch of Ms. Hunt, but it�s all in service to the story � may dampen its commercial potential. Longtime Hawkes fans will recognize Rusty Schwimmer as a hated caregiver in early scenes; she was his almost-romantic-interest in THE PERFECT STORM.
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The Sessions
