In The Surrogate, a 38-year-year-old man named Mark O’Brien hires a woman to relieve him of his virginity. But wait, there’s more: Because of childhood polio, the man can’t move his body below his neck, and when he isn’t spending hours in the iron lung that helps him breathe, he’s lying flat on a gurney, cared for by a rotation of attendants. Also there’s this: The woman he hires isn’t a prostitute but a surrogate partner, trained as a sex therapist and experienced at working with disabled clients. The real O’Brien, a poet and journalist, wrote eloquently about his life, including the article “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate,” published in 1990; he died in 1999 at the age of 49. The movie O’Brien is played by Winter’s Bone’s wonderful John Hawkes; Helen Hunt is frequently, frankly, and rather elegantly naked as Cheryl, the therapist who teaches him How To. O’Brien was a devout Roman Catholic, and William H. Macy has a great turn as a priest who becomes the poet’s great friend as well as confessor. (With more priests like Macy, there might be a boom in church going.) READ FULL STORY »
