Special Jury Award in Panorama and Teddy Award: CONCUSSION from New York

First film of director Stacie Passon-after a career as a commercial producer-  CONCUSSION is the kind of discovery you come to the Berlinale’ Panorama and hope for.

Abby (Robin Weigert) is an interior designer turned soccer mom, desperate housewife, a bourgeoise, an assimilated, disengaged, wealthy suburban lady. Abby is a lesbian, with a divorce-lawyer wife and two young kids. They are a perfect familly in the suburbs of New York.

Abby wakes up one day, after suffering a bad bump, with the feeling that the spark has gone out of her life, sexually and otherwise.

So she goes back to work, renovating a Manhattan loft.
Particularly bothered by the lack of physical affection she gets from businesslike Kate, Abby goes to a prostitute, then another, until she becomes herself an escort for female clients only.
Thus, from pied-à-terre to maison de plaisir.

So far from being hit by amnesia, she is rather hit by an epiphany.

The clients she entertains are gay, some, or some merely curious.

What follows is sometimes poignant (the overweight virgin prompted by a women's studies course to rent a date), sometimes psychologically intriguing (an older woman who nearly talks herself out of doing what she has paid for), and sometimes exciting.

But one of the quietly revolutionary things about Concussion is that it takes Abby's sexuality and her domestic situation, and proceeds from there on.

The movie's true subject is a problem (the loss of passion) that can happen in any relationship.
And Passon addresses it in a series of smart, funny and surprising ways. A thorough reflexion on marriage, fidelity, sexuality and the choices we make in life…

The Director's attitude towards this glossy character remains  unclear, though.
So I cannot stop asking myself some questions ...
Are her illicit experiences meant to redeem her in some way?
Are they anything more than a reminder of her wild days?

Some have compared the film to a sort of Belle de jour in a lesbian sauce.
In reality I’d say it is a painfull, interesting but discontinous portrait (the second half and the scarce male characters leave me a bit hungry) of the life of a couple.

By the film's end, the character - whose married life boils down to making choices between khaki, parchment and beige... - seems unchanged.

And Concussion can't decide if that's a good thing or bad.

 

GD

Production companies: Concussion LLC, Razorwire Films, Cliff Chenfeld Productions, The Group Films
Cast: Robin Weigert, Maggie Siff, Johnathan Tchaikovsky, Julie Fain Lawrence, Emily Kinney, Laila Robins
Director-Screenwriter: Stacie Passon
Producer: Rose Troche
Executive producers: Cliff Chenfeld, Anthony Cupo
Director of photography: David Kruta
Production designer: Lisa Myers
Costume designer: Jennifer K. Bentley
Editor: Anthony Cupo
No rating, 95 minutes