Sessions Arrives Digitally November 27 to Confront Sesh Culture and Male Mental Health Crisis
Sessions, a new psychological thriller distributed by Hyprr Films, becomes available on digital download from November 27 on platforms including Apple and Amazon. The short synopsis describes a man named Richie who faces the effects of substance abuse on both his relationships and mental well-being while struggling with inner demons.
Richie’s life appears picture-perfect on the surface with a new wife, a baby on the way and a loyal best friend who knows how to turn up the volume. Beneath that surface Richie is silently drowning. Terrified by the pressures of impending fatherhood and financial strain, he hides crippling anxiety behind a mask of lad culture, fuelling himself with cocaine, whiskey and denial. When his charismatic best friend Steve draws him into a high-stakes property deal with a corrupt developer, Richie sees one last chance to fix his life and prove his worth as a man.
What begins as a quick score turns into a waking nightmare. As the deal unravels Richie loses his job, his marriage and his grip on reality. Hunted by a creditor and haunted by his own mind, he spirals through a haze of drugs and paranoia while desperately trying to hold onto the one person he thinks he can trust. The film is presented as a visceral psychological thriller that unmasks the silent epidemic of the male mental health crisis, exploring the devastating cost of toxic enabling, the trauma of unspoken grief and the urgent need for men to ask for help.
Director Giles Alderson, whose previous credits include Food for Thought and The Dare, helms the project. Alderson states he is delighted to direct a film with real heart and describes Sessions as a performance-driven psychological thriller that is also a drama about a man with addictive tendencies struggling with machismo and his place in society. He notes that addiction grabs at you and does not let go, that some bruises do not heal and that he wanted the cast and crew heavily invested because he understands the dangers firsthand from personal experience and therapy. Alderson aimed for an atmospheric, dark, eerily dreamy tone that teases what is real, using sound design and a banging soundtrack to place viewers inside Richie’s head and deliver an uplifting yet resonating finale.
Co-writer and star Daniel O’Reilly says he poured everything into a film about a generation gripped by sesh culture. He explains that the story holds a mirror to men who do not even know they are battling their demons, speaks for the women fighting to hold families together and shows men what they are doing to themselves and their families before it is too late. O’Reilly adds that before the shame and guilt of messing it all up becomes too much some choose to leave this world behind, just as he almost did. He states he did not realise he was struggling until it was nearly too late, that this film would have changed him sooner and that it is his story dramatised. He urges viewers to recognise that someone they love is living it right now and says the film is for them.
The cast features Daniel O’Reilly in the central role alongside Jonas Armstrong from The Bay as Steve, Rupert Graves from Sherlock as the creditor, Bill Fellows from Ted Lasso, Jaime Winstone from Sumotherhood, Leo Gregory from Green Street as the corrupt developer, Preeya Kalidas from Four Lions, Percelle Ascott from Doctor Who and Paul Smith.
Hyprr Films is a boutique production company whose portfolio includes Last Heist, which amassed 100,000 downloads before reaching number one on the Amazon crime chart, Kindling starring BAFTA Rising Star winner Mia McKenna-Bruce and the action thriller No Way Up featuring Colm Meaney. Picture Perfect was established in 2015 by Jeet Thakrar and Lucinda Rhodes Thakrar and has produced over 30 films including One Ranger with Thomas Jane and John Malkovich, Boudica Queen of War with Olga Kurylenko and Blackwater Lane with Maggie Grace, Minka Kelly and Dermot Mulroney.
Producers are Daniel O’Reilly, Carl Shepherd and Lucinda Rhodes Thakrar. Writers are Daniel O’Reilly, Jonathan Kogan, Giles Alderson and Tobias Vees. The film runs 87 minutes and carries a BBFC certificate of 15. Limited cast interviews are available through the distributor.
