Subverting conventional media
stereotypes, debut writer/director Stacie
Passon has created a lesbian fantasy film with little interest in the gaze
of male audiences.
Abby (Robin Weigert) is a sexually frustrated upper-middle class housewife
living with Kate (Julie Fain Lawrence)
and their two sons in the suburbia around New York State. After being hit in the head by her son’s
baseball she begins to question her happiness and ends up buying a property in
Manhattan as a renovation project to escape her mundane family life.
After losing all sexual advances from
Kate, Abby explores the world of high-end prostitution with the help of her
friend Evan – firstly as a client and then as a call girl herself. She insists that she has a coffee with all
potential patrons first, and only choses sophisticated and well-read liberal
women.
The apartment that Abby is developing
becomes a metaphor for her increasingly complex libido, as she becomes more
adventurous as she brings more clients to the space as she continues to develop
it. When she finally does catch Kate in
the right mood back in their house together, Abby’s sexual enjoyment has
changed after her new experiences and Kate can’t understand it, which leads to
even greater tension between them…
For a film about female-only prostitution,
there is only a small amount of onscreen sex and it is never gratuitous and
always works as character development and not as gratification for male
audiences. That said though, the
cinematography is rich and the performances are sexy. The concussion referred to in the title is
the genesis of Abby’s midlife crisis, suggesting that people need to be knocked
out of sexual banality and to try something new. A message that will resonate with straight or
gay audiences.
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