The Sessions tells the remarkable, funny, heartfelt and optimistic story of California-based journalist and poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes, in an award-worthy performance), a man who lived most of his life in an iron lung after having survived a bout of childhood polio.  At age 38, Mark becomes determined to lose his virginity and sets out to make his dream a reality by hiring a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), who becomes as deeply moved by the experience as he is.  From writer/director Ben Lewin, the film also stars William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Rhea Perlman, W. Earl Brown, Robin Weigert and Adam Arkin.

At the film’s press day, actor William H. Macy, who plays Mark O’Brien’s priest, spoke to Collider for this exclusive interview about what attracted him to the role, what surprised him about the film, why he likes to read a script fast and go with his first instinct, how he most identified with Father Brendan, and what it was like to watch John Hawkes give this performance.  He also talked about what fans can expect from Season 3 of his popular Showtime drama series Shameless, returning on January 13, 2013, and why he loves playing Frank Gallagher.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.  The Sessions opens tomorrow in limited release.]

In the movies, pretty adults are supposed to have sex. The male lead and the female lead need to be our idealized selves in an ideal relationship and they need to have attractive people sex. But in the real world, people find a way to fall in love and get it on even if they don’t have chiseled abs or amazing breasts. And then there are those people where, due to their physique, we wonder if sex is even an option and we’re sure that thought has crossed their minds as well. And no matter our physique, we’ve all probably wondered if we’ll ever find love. Those thoughts—of finding love and sex—crossed the mind of writer and poet Mark O’Brien. At the age of six, O’Brien’s body was ravaged by polio and he was placed in an iron lung, which he could only leave for a few hours at a time. As John entered his 40s, he still hadn’t had sex or found love, and in Ben Lewin‘s The Sessions—a movie based on O’Brien’s real experiences—he searches for both. The Sessions comes right up to the line of being painfully sentimental and mawkish, but strong direction and amazing lead performances make the film inspirational, funny, and genuinely heartwarming.

Four clips from the upcoming drama The Sessions have been released.  The movie stars John Hawkes as writer and poet Mark O’Brien, whose body was ravaged by polio when he was a child and stuck him in an iron lung for the rest of his life.  However, he still wanted to have sex and intimacy, and so he found a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him learn the intricacies of intercourse.  The pic made waves earlier this year when it debuted to a rapturously positive response at the Sundance Film Festival (read Matt’s review right here), with many singling out the fantastic performances from Hawkes and Hunt.

Hit the jump to watch the clips.  The film also stars William H. Macy and Moon Bloodgood.  The Sessions opens in limited release on October 19th.

The Sessions tells the remarkable, funny, heartfelt and optimistic story of California-based journalist and poet Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes, in an award-worthy performance), a man who lived most of his life in an iron lung after having survived a bout of childhood polio.  At age 38, Mark becomes determined to lose his virginity and sets out to make his dream a reality by hiring a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), who becomes as deeply moved by the experience as he is.  From writer/director Ben Lewin, the film also stars William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Rhea Perlman, W. Earl Brown, Robin Weigert and Adam Arkin.

At the film’s press day, actor John Hawkes talked about how he maintained the body curvature necessary for the role, what it was like to be confined in the iron lung, the challenge of only having his face to convey his entire emotional performance, exploring the sex surrogate relationship with co-star Helen Hunt, and the responsibility of honoring someone’s memory.  Check out what he had to say after the jump. 

The first clip from The Sessions has gone online.  The movie stars John Hawkes as writer and poet Mark O’Brien, whose body was ravaged by polio when he was a child and stuck him in an iron lung for the rest of his life.  However, he still wanted to have sex and intimacy, and so he found a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him learn the intricacies of intercourse.  This debut clip explains how Hunt’s character isn’t a prostitute even though O’Brien pays her for sex.  It also provides a glimpse of the excellent performances from Hawkes and Hunt.  I caught the movie at Sundance (back when it was called The Surrogate) and though it was really terrific, so I can’t wait for more people to get a look at it.

Hit the jump to check out the clip.  The Sessions opens October 26th.

The first trailer for the drama The Sessions (previously The Surrogate) has been released.  The movie stars John Hawkes as writer and poet Mark O’Brien, whose body was ravaged by polio when he was a child and stuck him in an iron lung for the rest of his life.  However, he still wanted to have sex and intimacy, and so he found a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him learn the intricacies of sexual intercourse.  The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to a rapturous response, with many singling out a superb performance from Hawkes.  Matt called the film “inspirational, funny, and genuinely heartwarming” in his review, and he’s actually double-blurbed in this first trailer.  Hawkes, Hunt, and William H. Macy are just about as good as it gets (pardon the pun), and this trailer promises a moving, funny, and hopefully insightful film not about robots, explosions, or aliens, but about people interacting with people.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and you can also check out Steve’s interviews from Sundance with Hawkes and Macy if you missed them.  The Sessions opens on October 26th.

One of the best-received films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was The Surrogate.  The movie stars John Hawkes as writer and poet Mark O’Brien, whose body was ravaged by polio when he was a child and stuck him in an iron lung for the rest of his life.  However, he still wanted to have sex and intimacy, and so he found a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him learn how maintain an erection, have prolonged sexual intercourse, etc.  Click here to read my positive review.

Fox Searchlight has announced that they will release the film on October 26th, but it will now be called Six Sessions, which refers to the number of sessions the surrogate has with O’Brien.  I can understand the change since the word “surrogate” is usually associated with pregnancy.  The movie will serve as a nice bit of limited-release counter-programming against the wide release films Alex Cross, Fun Size, Of Men and Mavericks, and Silent Hill: Revelations 3D [Box Office Mojo].

Led by a truly remarkable performance by John Hawkes, writer-director Ben Lewin‘s The Surrogate blew me away at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  The film’s based on the true story of Mark O’Brien, a 36-year-old poet and journalist with an iron lung, who decides that he no longer wants to be a virgin.  With the help of his priest (William H. Macy) and a professional sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), we follow his amazing journey.  Trust me, The Surrogates is great on so many levels (which explains why there was a bidding war; Fox Searchlight won), and it’s definitely going to be a contender at the 2013 Academy Awards.  For more on the film, here’s Matt’s review.

Shortly after seeing the film, I sat down with John Hawkes for an extended interview.  We talked about being at Sundance, how he prepared for The Surrogate, the responsibility of playing a real person, his preference between a few takes or a lot, and so much more.  In addition, since Hawkes just worked with Steven Spielberg on Lincoln, he talked about how Tony Kushner‘s screenplay drew him to the project and what it was like to work with Daniel Day-Lewis.  Hit the jump to watch.

Led by a truly remarkable performance by John Hawkes, writer-director Ben Lewin‘s The Surrogate blew me away at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  The film’s based on the true story of Mark O’Brien, a 36-year-old poet and journalist with an iron lung, who decides that he no longer wants to be a virgin.  With the help of his priest (William H. Macy) and a professional sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), we follow on his amazing journey.  Trust me, The Surrogates is great on so many levels (which explains why there was a bidding war; Fox Searchlight won), and it’s definitely going to be a contender at the 2013 Academy Awards.  For more on the film, here’s Matt’s review.

Shortly after seeing the film, I sat down with William H. Macy for an extended interview.  We talked about being at Sundance, his reaction to seeing the film with an audience for the first time, how he prepared for The Surrogate, his philosophy as an actor, karaoke, and a lot more.  In addition, with Macy currently starring on the hit Showtime series Shameless, we talked about what’s coming up on the second season, how he wrote the sixth episode, the writers room, how the second season is completely different than the BBC version, and what do people always want to talk to him about when they meet him.  Hit the jump to watch.

Like I did last year, I had a great time at the Sundance Film Festival.  It’s tough to complain about weather conditions or getting around when you have the privilege to watch and discover new movies all day.  Even better, plenty of Sundance 2012 films turned out to be pretty damn good.  For me, there weren’t any quite as excellent as Martha Marcy May Marlene or Project Nim from last year, but those movies set an incredibly high bar.  Many of my peers felt they saw something truly special with Beasts of the Southern Wild and I can understand the love even if it didn’t hit me with as much emotional impact.  Most of my peers also loved Liberal Arts and Sleepwalk With Me, and I’m sorry I missed those.  But all in all, the festival ran as smoothly as last year, the volunteers (especially those in the press tent) were awesome, and it’s always a joy to hang out with people from other movie websites.

Hit the jump for my festival scorecard where you can see an organized list of my ratings for the movies I saw (although I highly encourage you to read the full review rather than just glance at a letter).  While this is my wrap-up, Steve will be posting his Sundance interviews throughout the week so keep an eye out for those.

If you have followed our Sundance coverage over the last week and a half, you know how massive the festival can feel from afar.  These are the movies that will fill arthouses over the next year, so perhaps the best place for those who could not make it to Park City to start is at the end, with the announcement of the awards.  In terms of the major awards, the Grand Jury Prizes went to  Beasts of the Southern Wild (Dramatic), The House I Live In (in the Documentary category), Violeta Went to Heaven (World Dramatic), and The Law in These Parts (World Documentary).  Beasts of the Southern Wild, the consensus critical darling, also won for cinematography and a producers’ award.  Thankfully Fox Searchlight made a deal to bring Beasts to a theater near you soon.

The Audience Awards went to The Surrogate (Dramatic), The Invisible War (Documentary), Valley of Saints (World Dramatic), and Searching for Sugar Man (World Documentary).  The cast of The Surrogates—led by John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William H. Macy—doubled up with the Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting.  Fox Searchlight also picked up The Surrogates.  Love that studio.  Hit the jump for the press release with the expansive list of award winners.

In the movies, pretty adults are supposed to have sex.  The male lead and the female lead need to be our idealized selves in an ideal relationship and they need to have attractive people sex.  But in the real world, people find a way to fall in love and get it on even if they don’t have chiseled abs or amazing breasts.  And then there are those people where, due to their physique, we wonder if sex is even an option and we’re sure that thought has crossed their minds as well.  And no matter our physique, we’ve all probably wondered if we’ll ever find love.  Those thoughts—of finding love and sex—crossed the mind of writer and poet Mark O’Brien.  At the age of six, O’Brien’s body was ravaged by polio and he was placed in an iron lung, which he could only leave for a few hours at a time.  As John entered his 40s, he still hadn’t had sex or found love, and in Ben Lewin‘s The Surrogate—a movie based on O’Brien’s real experiences—he searches for both.  The Surrogate comes right up to the line of being painfully sentimental and mawkish, but strong direction and amazing lead performances make the film inspirational, funny, and genuinely heartwarming.

Two of the more high profile films featured at this year’s Sundance Film Festival have now secured distribution. Fox Searchlight will handle the drama The Surrogate, while Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the comedy Celeste and Jesse Forever. The Surrogate is quickly becoming one of the more crowd-pleasing pics at the fest, picking up a considerable amount of buzz with each screening. The film stars John Hawkes as a paraplegic polio victim who sets out to find a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) wiling to take his virginity. Fox Searchlight acquired worldwide rights to the flick, which also stars William H. Macy.

Additionally, Sony Pictures Classics has acquired distribution rights to Celeste and Jesse Forever. Co-written by and starring Rashida Jones, the film centers on a couple that decides to break up. The impressive cast is rounded out by Andy Samberg, Emma Roberts, and Elijah Wood. Hit the jump to read the full press release regarding both acquisitions, and click here to read Matt’s review of the Celeste and Jesse Forever.

I had a blast at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and I can’t wait to go again next year.  Today, Sundance announced their In-Competition line-ups for 2012 and already I’m trying to plan out how I’m going to see all of them (which is impossible, but it’s nice to dream).  The U.S. Dramatic Competition features For Ellen, Nobody Walks, Safety Not Guaranteed, Smashed, and more.  There are also some interesting-sounding films in the U.S. Documentary Competition including Finding North, The Invisible War, and The Other Dream Team.

Hit the jump to check out the full press release, which includes the in-competition line-ups for U.S. Dramatic Competition, U.S. Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and World Cinema Documentary Competition.  The 2012 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 19 – 29th.

Academy Award Winner Helen Hunt has joined the cast of the indie drama The Surrogate. Recent Oscar nominee John Hawkes is set to play the role of Mark O’Brien in the film based on a true story. O’Brien was “a paraplegic polio victim who lived most of his life in an iron lung, paralyzed from the neck down.” Hawkes’ character sets out to find a sex surrogate willing to take his virginity, and Variety reports that Hunt will take on the role of his surrogate. Rhea Pearlman also has a role in the film.

Hunt’s character struggles with her own life, coming to terms with explaining her profession to her 12-year-old son. Ben Lewin wrote and will direct the period flick set in the 1980’s. Lewin himself is a polio survivor.