A Look at Women and the Box Office

Jennifer Lawrence's Catching Fire is poised to cross the $350 million domestic mark this weekend, becoming only the third film to do so this year, and putting it within shouting distance of Iron Man 3, which gathered $409 million this past summer.  This year has been a robust one for women at the Box Office.  In addition to Lawrence's success, Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy both headlined a pair of $100 million+ grossers at the box office, and Jennifer Aniston/Kristen Bell also were the leads in films of similar grosses.

That being said, being the Number One film of the year continues to be a "man's world."  Since 1980, only one film had a woman get equal/top billing and was also the highest-grossing picture domestically: Titanic's Kate Winslet (who is technically second-billed, but only due to the alphabet).  Otherwise literally every other film had a man as the definitive lead.  

This wasn't always the case.  While Box Office Mojo (the only site I trust explicitly in these sorts of matters) only goes back to 1980 in their grosses, films of the 1950's through the 1970's regularly had women such as Mitzi Gaynor, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews, Audrey Hepburn, Barbra Streisand, and Ali McGraw starring in the top-grossing film of the year.

So as a bit of fun today (and because it's cold out and I don't want to venture into the iciness), I thought I would track the past 25 years of cinema, and look to see what the biggest role for a woman in the top-grossing film is, as well as the highest-grossing film where an actress gets top billing.  Let's take a look (we'll skip 2013 since we've already gone there)!

1988

Top Grossing Film: Rain Man

Main Female Star: Valeria Golino, who is Tom Cruise's girlfriend and gets third billing

Highest-Grossing Film With a Top-Billed Actress: So, for those who are curious, I'm going with top-billed star or someone who gets a tie for top-billed, so even though, say, Winona Ryder might have the biggest part in Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton is still the champ there.  I'm also skipping Working Girl here, because in the posters I can find, Melanie Griffith is below Harrison Ford and Weaver gets second billing, proving that the billing isn't alphabetical.  Therefore, I’m going with Jamie Lee Curtis and A Fish Called Wanda, who gets alphabetical top-billing (shared with John Cleese, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin), and was the twelfth highest-grossing film of the year.

1989

Top Grossing Film: Batman

Main Female Star: Kim Basinger as Michael Keaton’s girlfriend, and she gets third billing

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: I probably should have looked at how difficult it would be to pick out “top-billed” before I started this project.  One could argue that Kirstie Alley is the lead in Look Who’s Talking, but she gets second billing to John Travolta.  Morgan Freeman is before Jessica Tandy alphabetically for Driving Miss Daisy, but the way the poster is structured they don’t share top-billing.  Therefore, the crown goes to Meg Ryan who shares top-billing with Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally… in the eleventh highest-grossing film of the year.

1990

Top Grossing Film: Home Alone

Main Female Star: Christopher Guest favorite Catherine O’Hara plays Kevin McAllister’s mother, and gets sixth-billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Patrick Swayze outranks Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg on the Ghost poster, so that’s a no.  Therefore, thanks to our now patent-pending alphabetical clause, the award goes to Julia Roberts who shared top-billing in the fourth-highest grossing film of the year in Pretty Woman.

1991

Top Grossing Film: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Main Female Star: This is one of the only films on this list that I haven’t seen, and it’s bumming me out because it has a female star in second billing (our first) and also one that kicks some ass-Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: In our first case of an actress not sharing the top billing (though she does share the title), Paige O’Hara, the voice of Belle in Beauty and the Beast takes the prize with the third highest-ranking film of the year.

1992

Top Grossing Film: Aladdin

Main Female Star: As the voice of Aladdin’s girlfriend Princess Jasmine (what does it say that we’re only five films in and the description “girlfriend of the main character” has been used thrice), voiced by Linda Larkin, lands third billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Everyone only remembers Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, but she gets third billing to Keaton and DeVito.  Demi Moore gets above-the-line billing on A Few Good Men, but the ranking isn’t alphabetical so she loses to Tom Cruise.  That leaves us with the seventh-highest grossing film of the year, Sister Act, and its star Whoopi Goldberg as our victors.

1993

Top Grossing Film: Jurassic Park

Main Female Star: Though really the stars are the effects and Steven Spielberg, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler lands in the number two spot behind Sam Neill.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Our first actress to repeat is Meg Ryan, who shares top-billing with Tom Hanks in the number five grosser Sleepless in Seattle.

1994

Top Grossing Film: Forrest Gump

Main Female Star: As Forrest’s girlfriend Jenny, we have Robin Wright with second billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: It’s hard to imagine now, but Sandra Bullock wasn’t a big enough star in 1994 to outrank Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper for billing.  Jodie Foster was above-the-line for Maverick, but Mel Gibson still gets higher billing than her (and the above-the-line isn’t alphabetical).  That means we hit our lowest-ranking yet with 13^th place.  The victor is Susan Sarandon, who was Oscar-nominated for her work in The Client.

1995

Top Grossing Film: Toy Story

Main Female Star: Oof-all the way down in seventh place is cowboy Woody’s girlfriend Bo Peep, voiced by Annie Potts.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Whew-I thought for a second that Mel Gibson was going to get top-billing on Pocahontas, but thankfully that went to the title character, voiced by Irene Bedard, for the fourth highest-grossing film of the year.

1996

Top Grossing Film: Independence Day

Main Female Star: I was a little worried when I remembered this very male-dominated film at how far we’d have to go for a woman, but it was only fourth billing, with Mary McDonnell (playing the First Lady and wife of a main character) being the main female lead.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Oh so close-were it not for Independence Day, we would have had a female-led top-grosser, as Helen Hunt gets first-billing for the number two film of the year, Twister.

1997

Top Grossing Film: Titanic

Main Female Star and Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: In the only year that we’re going to cover where this happens, Kate Winslet shares top-billing with Leonardo DiCaprio for this romantic epic.

1998

Top Grossing Film: Saving Private Ryan

Main Female Star: This is probably the only time I’ve ever hoped for Armageddon over Saving Private Ryan, as women would have done much better there.  While there are bit parts played by female actors in this film, you have to go through dozens of men to get to them, so I’m not even going to bother finding out what the ranking was.  We’ll just say does not apply and move onward.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Thankfully Cameron Diaz was a big enough star to land a top-billed slot for (Number Three) There’s Something About Mary.  Otherwise we would have had to go well outside the Top 10 to land a female-led film.  Clearly 1998 was not a great “Year of the Woman” at the movies.

1999

Top Grossing Film: Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace

Main Female Star: Here is where franchises really and truly start to take over the tops of the box office, and so we’ll see more repeats on these names.  Here we find third-billed Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala (she isn’t the “girlfriend” role until episode two, so we’re good for now).

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Our second actress to appear twice on this list, Julia Roberts doesn’t even need an alphabetical clause to get her top-billing for Runaway Bride, the ninth highest-grossing film of the year.

2000

Top Grossing Film: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Main Female Star: So apparently for a while there films no one liked became the highest-grossing films of the year.  Jim Carrey’s gaudy misadventures had a young Taylor Momsen in second billing for her work as Cindy Lou Who.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Continuing the trend of films no one really likes anymore, we have the fifth highest-grossing film (and our third film to star a repeat actress on the list), What Women Want with Helen Hunt sharing top-billing with Mel Gibson.

2001

Top Grossing Film: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Main Female Star: This is genuinely hard to tell, because the credits don’t go in order of screen-time, per say.  I’m going to just go with conventional wisdom, then, and say that Emma Watson was in third billing, though it may well have been Maggie Smith for this particular installment.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: The romantic epic doesn’t have split billing, so Kate Beckinsale in Pearl Harbor is out-of-luck to Ben Affleck.  Therefore, we have to go to the twelfth-place film Hannibal, where our alphabetical clause probably gets Julianne Moore in on a technicality (Hopkins was clearly top-billed here), but they’re both above the line and even on the poster, so it counts.

2002

Top Grossing Film: Spider-Man

Main Female Star: Playing, once again, Spider-Man’s girlfriend is Kirsten Dunst.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: It’s arguable whether Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman share top-billing on Attack of the Clones, but I’m erring on the side of no without a poster to back-me-up.  Therefore, the winner is the surprise hit of 2002, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its star Nia Vardalos, who landed the Number 5 spot (can you imagine something like that happening even just ten years later?).

2003

Top Grossing Film: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Main Female Star: Oddly enough, this is the only time the Tolkien series has made it to the top of the heap.  Like Harry Potter, the billing here is very off in relation to actual screen time, so the winner is either Miranda Otto, Cate Blanchett, or Liv Tyler, though only Otto gets a robust role in the film.  At least if it’s Otto it’s not the main character’s girlfriend (though she’s still in love with him).

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: The alphabetical rule blocks our second woman of color getting in here, as Queen Latifah is second-billed to Steve Martin in Bringing Down the House.  The same is true for Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta Give.  Therefore we have to do our fourth double-appearance and our first ever tie with the 21^st (yes, that’s not a typo) highest-grossing film of the year Freaky Friday starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in the dual top-billing.

2004

Top Grossing Film: Shrek 2

Main Female Star: Cameron Diaz plays Shrek’s wife in this film, and lands third billing for her efforts.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Drew Barrymore suffers from the alphabetical billing clause in 50 First Dates, which leads oddly to another 21^st place finish with another actress (similar to Lohan) who had a very brief period of box office success: Sarah Michelle Gellar in The Grudge.

2005

Top Grossing Film: Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith

Main Female Star: Natalie Portman, now decidedly in the girlfriend mode, gets second billing.  Also, in a side note-how odd is it that this film did SO much better ($90 million) than that year’s Harry Potter?  This is not something commonly thought of because of Harry’s spellbinding international grosses, but the Star Wars films perform much better domestically than the boy wizard.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Our second film on this list so far to get a woman into the second-highest grossing film, Tilda Swinton lead the field with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but could only manage the silver.

2006

Top Grossing Film: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Main Female Star: Pulling in third billing is Keira Knightley as, you guessed it, Orlando Bloom’s girlfriend (and the third leg of the Jack/Will/Elizabeth love triangle).

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Probably our eldest actress so far to get cited, in 17^th place (a mild improvement, though nowhere near where we were a decade ago), we have Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, which won her a massive comeback and an Oscar nomination.

2007

Top Grossing Film: Spider-Man 3

Main Female Star: Again, this is one of the only top grossers I never got around to (which is odd, because I was seeing a lot of movies during this period).  Either way, we have Kirsten Dunst once more as Peter Parker’s girlfriend.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: The alphabetical clause discounts Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up as well as Jessica Alba in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (a film so little looked up, its video game pops up before it does in IMDB).  Instead, we have Amy Adams taking the prize for her Princess Giselle in Enchanted, coming in at twentieth place.

2008

Top Grossing Film: The Dark Knight

Main Female Star: Oh, it’s a comic book film so you just know that it’s a girlfriend role: Maggie Gyllenhaal playing Rachel with fifth place billing.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: And for the first time ever, we have a female-led film series.  Say what you want about Kristen Stewart and this cinematic series, but few other women in the past ten years can compete with her box office pulls.  Twilight gets us seventh place.  It’s also worth noting that 2008 was a surprisingly robust year for women at the Box Office: Sarah Jessica Parker’s Sex and the City, Meryl Streep’s Mamma Mia, and Angelina Jolie’s Wanted were all in the Top 20.

2009

Top Grossing Film: Avatar

Main Female Star: I was genuinely curious considering her lack of star power and the fact that Sigourney Weaver was a bigger name at the time, but Zoe Saldana (in second) did indeed get the top spot here.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: In fourth place, we have our second appearance by Kristen Stewart, though it’s worth noting that Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side got in eighth place this year, meaning that after roughly a decade where women could barely scrape into the Top 20, here we had two films in the Top 10 that were female-led.

2010

Top Grossing Film: Toy Story 3

Main Female Star: Unlike fifteen years earlier, we didn’t have Annie Potts, but instead Joan Cusack as our top actress, and Cusack comes in as third with the rootenest, tootenest Jessie.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Despite being the title character, Mia Wasikowska was outranked by the movie star that is Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland.  That means for the third year in a row we have Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (and another female-led film in Tangled, which rounded out the Top 10).  Eclipse ranked fourth.

2011

Top Grossing Film: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Main Female Star: Ten years after the question mark, this is still a bit up in the air, but it does appear that Emma Watson managed to slide into second billing for the final installment of the series.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Kristen Stewart continued her trend, with Breaking Dawn Part 1 being the third highest-grossing film of the year.  The next highest-ranking was The Help’s Emma Stone at thirteenth place.

2012

Top Grossing Film: The Avengers

Main Female Star: Well, at least she isn’t a girlfriend role.  In fifth place is Scarlett Johansson, playing one of the six avengers, the Black Widow.

Highest-Grossing Film with a Top-Billed Actress: Jennifer Lawrence supplants Kristen Stewart for the first time in four years, with The Hunger Games coming in third to Breaking Dawn Part II’s sixth place.  The highest-ranking woman not in a franchise (at least it didn’t seem intended to be a franchise at the time) was Kristen Stewart once more in Snow White and the Huntsman.

And there you have it, my friends-an exhaustive look at the box office and women’s roles in it.  It isn’t difficult to see the sexism on display-more than half of the principle roles in the highest-grossing films were women playing the main character’s love interest or girlfriend, and were it not for Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, female-led motion pictures would have almost no position in the Top 10’s of the past decade.  What about this list most surprised you?  What would it take for Hollywood to fix what is clearly a problem?  Why don’t people see more female-led motion pictures?  Share in the comments!

OVP: Supporting Actress (2012)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2012)

The Nominees Were...

Amy Adams, The Master

Sally Field, Lincoln

Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

My Thoughts: My computer is giving me a bit of a headache (actually, scratch that, the internet is being slow-Word is just fine), so my patience in writing this may be up after a while, and I might have to take a break before I pile into writing the lead categories.

But for now, I'll tackle the supporting players, and we'll start out with the supporting player who is the lead in her film, Helen Hunt.  Like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Supporting Actor, which we just discussed (click the Supporting Actor link below to peruse), this puts me in a bit of a quandary when it comes to ranking these performances, as Hunt is quite good in her movie, perhaps the best she's been since Mad About You, and better than her work in As Good As It Gets, but it's a bit unfair to compare her screentime with that of someone like Jacki Weaver, who is fifth lead at best in her movie.

But I digress, and will use Hunt's presence as a lead as a tiebreaker against her if I need to do so.  In the meantime, let's revel in the excellence on display here.  Forget for a second that there was definitely something brave about doing nudity at Hunt's age (or at least that's what the press said-personally if I looked as good as Hunt does, I'd be at the beach all the time, and it would have nothing to do with bravery).  What we have with Hunt is a miracle of filmmaking-an actress that gets to play a sexually-charged character who doesn't have to fall into romantic love or sacrifice a part of herself for a true character arch.  The best acted scene of the film was Hunt's breakdown in the car, with her crying about something she doesn't quite understand, and Hunt letting that abandon fly with little regard for comprehension.  Why this scene works, though, is because Hunt has established this woman as independent, as professional, and as someone who has done her job for many years and will continue to do it for many more.  The majority of films want to completely reinvent a person in a movie, but life doesn't work like that.  Hunt's performance understands this, and shows small shifts but no great leaps, and that makes her work so much richer.

Sally Field, on the flip side, may have wanted a bit more leaps in her character.  There was a lot to admire in Field's consummate work as Mary Todd, driven primarily by the fact that we so consistently underestimate Field as an actress.  She's a strong performer, but because we frequently associate her with Gidget and the Flying Nun and her cheerful, perky demeanor, we forget that she can do great things in front of a camera when she has opportunity, and that's apparent in her many duet scenes with Day-Lewis.  What I didn't like about this character, though, was the way that she tried too hard to rewrite Mary Todd Lincoln.  We are aware that the depictions of the "Mad Mary Todd" may be historically inaccurate, but her melancholy becomes far too ambitious, far too minute for the audience (it also bugged me to no avail that they rewrite Mary Todd but kept Lincoln a saint, though that's something I discussed rather handily in the review of Lincoln, so check that out if you're curious).  It's nice to have Field back in a great film (and to have an actress of a certain age getting cast for a role that could have gone with a much younger actress), but this is fine, not necessarily great.

Anne Hathaway is, in a lot of ways, very similar to Sally Field.  Both actresses had beginnings in wholesome, commercial-but-not-necessarily art fare (Princess Mia, anyone?), and both are far better actresses than their reputations have allowed.  I know that it is all the fashion to diss Anne Hathaway these days, but she's an actress of great talent despite her punching bag status, and her work in Les Miserables is proof of that.

Fantine is a killer part for anyone to play, and likely would have resulted in an Oscar nomination for almost anyone considering the prestige behind this project-she gets to play a prostitute, a destitute mother, gets a killer solo ballad, and gets to die.  That's the stuff that Oscar dreams are made of, and so Hathaway was almost always going to get nominated here.  What sets her apart, and allowed her to stampede over Field and Adams (her nearest competition), was that she sells the work, body-and-soul.  That gut-wrenching performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" finds the pain in the character, and with Marshall so wisely deciding to have her do it live, it allows for little imperfections in the execution and emotional baggage to land in the character.  Fantine is far too saintly for my liking, but Hathaway's performance is not-it gets to the woman behind the saint, and shows us a flesh-and-blood person.

Amy Adams, on the other hand, is not playing a saint, and may in fact be playing the devil, a change of pace for an actress that also has her perky baggage (Princess Giselle, anyone?).  Adams is a bit of a divisive figure amongst Oscar critics (she's been nominated four times in less than a decade), having been so rewarded and everyone has at least one performance they feel didn't deserve to be included of hers (for the record, that performance is never Junebug, still her best work).  I was of the camp that her portrayal of Peggy Dodd deserved inclusion.  Adams character choices are so calculated, but so is her character.  This is a woman who has a backbone of steel and the conscience of a sociopath-she's willing to stamp out all in her way, but you don't realize that until it's too late.  It helps that Anderson cast Adams, an actress whose characters always deserve the benefit of the doubt, to make her late decisions as a character, when Freddie has been used to her advantage and is now going to be tossed aside, all the more sinister.  A brava performance, and one of my favorite pieces of work from her.

The final nomination was our surprise inclusion of the acting races, Jacki Weaver.  Every year one actor gets in despite no precursor buzz, and this year it was Weaver.  The nomination was oddly reminiscent of Alan Alda's in 2004 for The Aviator, where a Best Picture frontrunner manages to scoop along a nomination for one of its lesser performances in a category that was fairly confused about who should be the final nominee.

I did enjoy Weaver's work here, I have to say, but there's nothing remotely special about it that warranted an Oscar nomination.  She plays the feeble side wife, who has dealt with mental illness for years (probably decades) and is used to her routines, and her crabby snacks and homemades.  Weaver is a welcome presence in everything she does (she's intensely watchable as an actress), but aside from her chastising Cooper in the car in the film's opening scenes (the scene that clearly won her the nomination, with a lot of help from Harvey), there's nothing that stands out about this performance.  Hopefully this nomination leads to more people giving Weaver great work (she was spectacular in Animal Kingdom, after all), but it's a nomination that never should have happened.

Other Precursor Contenders: As Jacki Weaver wasn't nominated by any of the precursors, we saw at least one additional name in all of precursor awards.  At the Globes (where Hathaway won), Weaver's place was taken by Nicole Kidman's bawdy work in The Paperboy.  At the BAFTA Awards, the adage "never underestimate Judi Dench" stuck quite nicely, with Dame Judi getting cited for her work in Skyfall (again, Hathaway won).  And at the SAG Awards, where Hathaway was again victorious, both Weaver and Amy Adams were left out, with Kidman and Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel both making the cut.  Smith, Kidman, and Ann Dowd in Compliance were the frontrunners for Weaver's spot, and considering her upswing career lately, my gut tells me it was Smith who was in sixth place.

Films I Would Have Nominated: The most egregious snub was for Dowd, as she was the only one of the women that was hunting for the nomination that I would have nominated without hesitation.  One could make the argument that she's the lead (a fair argument, to be sure), but either way she deserved inclusion for her naive fast food manager with low self-esteem.  Dowd's lack of a nomination is particularly depressing because we saw what a fifth place Oscar nomination did for Jacki Weaver's career a few years back for equally deserving work in Animal Kingdom.  I also find that Emma Watson is slowly becoming one of the actresses to watch of Gen Y, with her work in Perks of Being a Wallflower being so real and lovely.

Oscar’s Choice: Hathaway walked away with the category so handily it's hard to decide whether it was the obvious contender of Field or one of the other three women who came in second place (since Hathaway likely grabbed 70% of the vote, I would buy the argument that anyone other than Weaver was in second place).

My Choice: I'm sad I don't get to be a contrarian, but I'm going with Hathaway as well-it's too good to ignore.  In second place, I'll break the tie with Adams trumping Hunt's leading work, followed by Field and then Weaver.

We now have just the Big 4 to go!  What did you think about the Supporting Actress Oscar race?  Is anyone still Team Anne, and if you aren't, who were you rooting for (and please don't say "Anyone but Hathaway")?  Is there anyone out there who was cheering for Weaver?  And with a nail-biter sixth place race, who do you think was the closest to taking the final slot?  Share in the comments!

Also in 2012: Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Previously in 2012

Past Best Supporting Actress Contests: 2010, 2011

OVP: The Sessions (2012)

Film: The Sessions (2012)
Stars: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Adam Arkin
Director: Ben Lewis
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Helen Hunt)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Sex.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a subject more discussed, and yet seemingly just as taboo as this human obsession.  Seriously-there isn't a day of your adult life that it isn't mentioned, talked about, discussed, shunned, celebrated, and everything in-between, and yet, when a movie like The Sessions comes out, it's still cause for an eyebrow raise.  The fun of Ben Lewis's flawed but very capable film is that he basically ignores that eyebrow raise, gaining only a couple of laughs out of it, and instead, makes an honest depiction of one man's extreme hang-ups about sex (and the woman who helps him through them), and shows what happens when we let go of our insecurities and are just ourselves instead.

The film takes place in the late 1980's, and is about a real-life man named Mark O'Brien (Hawkes), who is in an iron lung due to polio, and has throughout his life, defeated the odds.  He has lived to be 38, an age no doctor expected him to reach, is a working writer and poet, has received his college degree, and overall has a routine, if not always fulfilling life.  He's the sort of man who survives things, finds ways to make things work.  He's also a man of deep faith, which plays throughout the film as a secondary storyline (the film is structured as he's giving confession to a priest, played by Macy), but truly shapes his character.  He believes in a higher calling, and is having a crisis of conscience.  You see, Mark wants what we all want-love and intimacy with someone he cherishes.  The film's opening thirty minutes focus on his growing affection, which he unfortunately declares, for a woman who is working as his caretaker.  Once she spurns his advances, and after a long consultation with his priest, Mark decides to seek out the advice and counseling of a sex surrogate.

For those unfamiliar, a sex surrogate is not a prostitute and is not a sex therapist, but if we're being honest, borrows a teensy bit from both and melds the idea.  It's here where Lewis gets his most provocative idea of the film going, though clearly the idea of sex surrogates have been around for decades now.  A sex surrogate is a person who helps to counsel those people who have sexual hang-ups (like Mark) and does indeed engage in sexual intercourse with Mark, but only for a maximum of six sessions.  This differs, of course, from a prostitute, in that the sex surrogate doesn't want your return business, and there is a limit to how long they will be seeing each other.  It's a hard concept, I admit, to getting around, which makes the job of Helen Hunt (who plays the sex surrogate, Cheryl), that much more difficult-can she both convince us that this is a real, therapeutic professional (and not a lady of the night), all-the-while establishing her own story arch?

It's here that The Sessions gets its best attribute.  While a lot of the focus on this film has been on the physically-demanding work being done by Hawkes, who plays his character with great charm and fun, and is one of those character actors I'm so damn excited has come to great success, it's Hunt that steals the film.  Hunt isn't necessarily an actress that I gravitate toward-she's always been a bit too methodical for me, and I, like many others, thought her Best Actress trophy was given prematurely for As Good As It Gets.  Here, however, we are given a performance that makes me rethink a lot of her career.  She plays Cheryl as a woman of confidence and professionalism, a therapist free of judgment but not necessarily free of opinions.  We see the woman in a sturdy but no-longer romantic marriage, drawn to her patient, but never really exhibiting it in front of him.  Hunt nails the way that a woman who had been in this tricky job for so long would be able to balance her emotions, even when they are overpowering, to ensure that she is doing what is best for her client.  One of my great pet peeves is when what is good for the story gets lost in what the character's ingrained personality and obvious reactions would be, and so I tip my hat to Lewis (and to Hunt) for not abandoning realism for the sake of an easy plot out.

(Spoilers to come) The work Cheryl and Mark do obviously helps (why else would it have become a movie?), and slowly Cheryl finds herself drawn to Mark, though he remains either oblivious or, being a gentleman, doesn't comment on it.  As Mark becomes more confident and encounters his sexual hang-ups, and his life's hang-ups, we see him start to assert himself more, and find more value in his life.  We also see Cheryl, whose marriage has a hiccup but doesn't falter, after their fourth session, encourage Mark to stop seeing her, because she's done all the good she can do.  The breakdown Hunt experiences in the car afterwards was so raw, and not necessarily pre-ordained, and so I found myself crying along with her.  Again, a triumph from an actress who hasn't had a lot of opportunities since the Academy crowned her fifteen years ago.

The film, for me, should have ended there.  The subsequent scenes, with Mark almost dying, and then meeting the love of his life, and then finally dying, and leaving a confusing message at the end of the film about whether or not Cheryl or this new woman was the love of his life, added unnecessary and murky complexities to the film that sort of kill the earlier scenes and really the purpose of the sex surrogacy.  In this case, a little ambiguity would have made the film better-we had received closure, we didn't need the neatly tied bow.

But that is not to say that this isn't a film worth checking out-you should soon, and see it with someone, if only for the inevitably thought-provoking conversation on the drive away from the theater.  After all, who doesn't love yet another conversation about sex?