2012 American film
The Sessions is a 2012 American drama film written and directed by Ben Lewin. It is based on the 1990 article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate" by Mark O'Brien, an American poet. Paralyzed from the neck down due to polio, he hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. John Hawkes and Helen Hunt star as O'Brien and sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene, respectively.
The film debuted under its original title The Surrogate at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award Dramatic and a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting.
Fox Searchlight Pictures acquired the film's distribution rights and released the renamed film in October 2012. The Sessions received highly positive reviews from critics, who particularly lauded the performances of Hawkes and Hunt. Hunt was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at the 85th Academy Awards.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.