If Concussion was not recommended in an article about top films made by female directors, I would have never watched it based on the description and the opening ten minutes nearly made me roll my eyes. I was thinking, “Not ANOTHER movie about a well off upper middle class family who have some manufactured malaise because they have no REAL problems and reclaim their identity through sexual discovery. Eye roll! I don’t care if they are a lesbian married couple! Same old schtick, different orientation. Don’t care. Thank you. No, thank you.” Add the similarities to Belle du Jour, and I was certain it was going to be a waste of my time.
I was wrong. I loved it. Yes, Concussion has the trite story line of a financially comfortable family that have a psychological crisis as one partner recognizes that she has become lost in the logistics of life’s routines and rediscovers herself by rediscovering and embracing her sexuality (through prostitution; thus my Belle du Jour reference).
Concussion works because the actors, particularly Robin Weigert, make it feel emotionally authentic and not like a cliche. Her sexual journey is only part of the story. She rediscovers herself by renovating and NOT immediately flipping a fixer upper apartment. Instead she puts things in the apartment that she likes. The apartment represents who she is without the children, the wife, the suburban mom friends and becomes her stage where she tries on different characters for her customers. She learns what her boundaries are (she doesn’t need the money so she can fire a customer who doesn’t please her or is too aggressive)-what she likes and does not like. She reclaims her agency instead of zombie walking through life. Pain woke her up and made her lose it at the indignities of what she is supposed to accept and how she is supposed to behave as a mom and a wife so through her work, she learns what she loves. Because her work life is energizing, she has more to give in her personal life, but when her work life becomes more interesting than her personal life, her personal life begins to suffer because she abandons the pretense that routine substitutes for joy. My favorite line was, “I’m 42. Something has to be me by now.” I love her enthusiasm in reasserting herself. The apartment is her-initially a broken, bare canvas and later a rich, layered home.
I always feel a little weird when a movie makes prostitution seem like something done for fun, not a job or exploitation. I feel like that is fantasy held by the purveyors, not the actual workers, but really I have no idea. Concussion succeeded at making me briefly put away my reservations. Concussion may offend delicate sensibilities due to the inherent nature of the subject matter, but it is not exploitative and was a joy to watch.