Lincoln, or How Kushner's drawing room talky is riveting

And so it comes to an end. See all the rest of the nominated films reviewed here or by following the tag. I am excitedly baking, preparing for my annual Oscar-themed cupcake party, so despite my allergy to everything Seth McFarlane, I am hoping it will be a good night. If nothing else, we'll have Adele singing "Skyfall" and maybe a nail-biter of a night in key categories which always makes for a fun and exciting ceremony. See you on the other side!

Lincoln
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Tony Kushner
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee-Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader & John Hawkes.

Oscar Nominations: 12 (Nominations leader!)
Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay (Tony Kushner), Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field), Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Director (Steven Spielberg) & Best Picture.

The subject matter (and even its marketing) suggested Spielberg's Lincoln would be stuffy, if exhaustively researched, history lesson on the passing on the thirteenth amendment. That's not really fair nor very accurate. Kushner's script manages to make Lincoln's attempts at abolishing slavery, ending the Civil War, draft a course for reconstruction, maintain some sort of familial stability (not necessarily in that order) while ideologically trying to keep a spirit of bipartisanship that upholds the even then dusty and ambiguously worded constitutional principles, a terse and at times electrifying film. This is obviously due to the assembled cast with Daniel Day-Lewis as the eponymous president whose Lincoln may not be quite the thespian achievement that Daniel Plainview was (though boy do these two performances make for quite an Americana double-bill!) but it is nonetheless a triumph in the way it humanizes Lincoln without losing the albeit hagiographic portrait the film paints. In his hands, Kushner's dramaturg soliloquies feel less stilted and stagey than they should.

The backdoor politics that make the central plot are quite gripping and timely, and it is only as the film enters its third act that a certain Spielbergian treacly ending (sprinkled with a necessary if overblown sense of embodied American exceptionalism) that it lags, though Jones's final pleas and tender final scene light up this purposefully dusty chamber piece. A-

The Sessions or How Hawkes and Hunt shine

The Sessions
Written & Directed: Ben Lewin
Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, Moon Bloodgood & William H. Macy.

Oscar Nominations: 1
Best Supporting Actress (Helen Hunt)

Of all the one-nomination wonders this year, The Sessions might be my favorite (Mirror Mirror is a close second). Lewin's warmly funny film follows Mark a writer in an iron lung (Hawkes) who wishes to lose his virginity at the ripe age of 38. For this he hires sex-surrogate Cheryl (Hunt) who agrees to coach him for six sessions to achieve this feat despite Mark's physical impediments. While the subject matter (disabled man pays woman for sex) may sound unseemly, Lewin and his cast have crafted a smart comedy about sex and intimacy that while bordering on a romantic comedy, never loses sight of its unabashed sexual politics (the implicit love and affection that blossoms between Mark and Cheryl, and which begins to creep into Cheryl's own marriage is mostly glossed over despite its potential to sanitize the central plot of Mark's sexual fulfillment). The movie -- while less of a PSA for disability sex than it sounds -- breaks less ground than it would like to, but still manages to create in Mark a funny and smart writer whose disability is not solely what defines him nor what limits him. Not to be trite, but it is very refreshing to find a movie try to navigate these issues without being condescending to its subject, though most of that is thanks to Hawkes's nasal-voiced Mark who yearns for the touch of a woman.

The movie moves breezily through Cheryl and Mark's sessions from awkward first encounter ("Mark, I'm not a hooker") to the -- yes, predictable but not for that less exciting -- climax of Mark's first sexual encounter with penetration. For a movie that goes out of its way to put its actors in uncomfortable situations (Hunt is naked for most of her scenes; Hawkes is restricted to a bed for all of it), Hunt and Hawkes have created a wonderful pair and bring out honest performances as they tackle the high-wire act of making a movie about sex come off as a pleasant little comedy without losing the pathos inherent in that sexual journey. B+