“CONCUSSION” My rating: C+ (Opens Oct. 18 at the Tivoli)
96 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Feeling smothered by her suburban marriage, a woman begins spending her days in the big city as a high-priced call girl.
This is not exactly an original idea. The best and most famous example of the genre is Louis Bunuel’s 1967 “Belle de Jour” with Catherine Deneuve.
But in “Concussion” writer/director Stacie Passon pulls a major switcheroo – our leading lady is half of a lesbian marriage and her “johns” all are women.
We first meet Abby (Robin Weigert) in the aftermath of being bonked on the head by a baseball thrown by her son. She’s on the way to the E.R. for stitches and is less than sanguine about the whole thing, angrily condemning the kid as a “little shit.”
But the concussion she has suffered has done more than bloody her face and sour her mood. In its aftermath Abby realizes she’s no longer satisfied with her lot as the stay-at-home wife of successful divorce lawyer Kate (Julie Fain Lawrence). There must be more to life than shopping, chauffeuring kids, and hanging out after spin class with the other moms in suburban New Jersey.
“Concussion” makes no big deal of the fact that Abby and Kate are gay. It’s a non issue. The other (straight) couples they hang out with are totally accepting. Their children – a boy and a girl – seem to be well adjusted.
Butler's Cinema Scene 