A moody, sexy drama with bursts of black comedy sprinkled throughout, Concussion takes familiar themes–infidelity, complacency, mid-life anxiety–and explores them from the fresh perspective of a fascinating (if a little unsympathetic) protagonist, a lesbian suburban housewife named Abby (Robin Weigert). Writer-director Stacie Passon’s debut feature is an accomplished first statement, with polished visuals, strong performances, and an ending that leaves you with a lot to chew on after leaving the theater.

After getting beaned in the head by a softball flung at her (inadvertently) by her son, Abby is driven to the hospital by her wife (Julie Fain Lawrence) when she’s hit again, this time by an epiphany. She squeals, “I don’t want this. I don’t want it” as tears and blood stream down her face. Living the lackadaisical life of a stay-at-home mom has finally broken her down, and it’s this moment of minivan mom misery that eventually drives her to lead a second life as a hooker, awakening a sex-hungry other side of her that she’s never met, or at least hasn’t seen in a very long time.

While renovating a loft in Manhattan with her muscly, straight man-friend, Justin (Jonathan Tchaikovsky), Abby confesses her interest in employing the services of prostitutes. Justin, a sleazeball dunderhead (but a friendly one), has the bright idea to have her become a hooker herself–she’ll get the sex she craves, (things are running a little dry with the wifey) and she’ll get paid for it.

In the film’s slightly bloated middle section, Abby (who goes by Eleanor on the job) meets several female clients, some young, some old, and has curious, often hilarious interactions with all of them (along with, of course, soft-core sexual relations). Weigert gets a lot to do here, as she interacts with each client in a different way. She gets to be a prowling temptress, a helpless victim, and even a nurturing mother figure, to a young, shy college student to whom she provides sexual guidance. Each meeting with the clients helps to flesh out Abby as a character, but as a whole, these trysts ultimately feel like one big showcase for Weigert’s immense talent.

Passon’s tale of housewife turned hooker shares elements with other films that explore prostitution, (above all, Belle de Jour comes to mind) but together, Passon and Weigert have created a unique character in Abby, whose mystique and tortured allure make her plight more magnetic on screen than it is on paper. Weigert expresses such raw emotion and longing with her face and body language it’s startling; early in the film (pre-Eleanor), when she’s touched by a beautiful prostitute she’s hired for herself (the gorgeous Maggie Siff), she’s so balled up with sexual anticipation and anxiety that her body locks up, stiff as a board, and her face glitches out in an attempt to wrangle the zillion emotions bursting inside her. Passon captures intimacy and sexuality on camera so well that the intensity borders on nail-biting.

The Manhattan loft out of which Abby runs her business is a character in itself, gradually evolving from empty, white box to lavishly decorated modern nook, symbolizing Abby’s quest for self. Passon and DP David Kruta are aggressively atypical with their compositions and colors, framing things from unexpected angles and overwhelming the screen with evocative monotones. Visually, Passon lays the story out beautifully. At home in suburbia, Abby’s an empty shell, captured in a wonderful shot of her sitting on a bed next to a mushroom cloud of laundry, despair and gloom drowning the room. In the apartment, she’s a sexual and spiritual adventurer, discovering bits of herself as she and her clients explore every inch of each other. Which life is best for Abby? Thankfully, Passon lets us decide.

In Concussion, first-time writer-director Stacie Passon gives us a glimpse into the doldrums of lesbian suburbia and how a bored housewife (Robin Weigert), awakened to her unfulfilling malaise by her son (who conks her in the head with a baseball), attempts to unleash her true inner-self by becoming a hooker. Unoriginal this movie is not, in a most beautiful, sensual, riveting way.

Hours before the screening of Concussion at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival back in June, Stacie Passon chatted with us at The Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel about living in the suburbs, her experience at the IFP Narrative Lab, the best week of her life, Robin Weigert’s shocking physical transformation for the role, making people squirm, and more.

Read our interview with stars Robin Weigert and Jonathan Tchaikovsky

Where did you get the idea for the story? Did your son actually hit you in the head with a baseball?
Yeah. My son has a really good arm and he wanted to practice. (laughs) My daughter was diverting my attention, he threw and the poor kid didn’t know I wasn’t looking. My behavior was awful! I had gotten to this point where I had a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old at the time, and I felt like it was my “fuck this” moment. Like, “What am I doing? What am I doing?” I started writing in short order and it was a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” moment.

Did you really call him a little shit?
No comment. Maybe you should ask him that. (laughs)

How do you like living in the suburbs?
It’s interesting. Since I’ve made the film, I’ve found a sense of community in the suburbs that I didn’t know existed. I think the lesson is–Wherever you are, be who you are, and then you’re going to meet like-minded people. I moved to the suburbs around four years ago, before production [on the film started]. I sat and painted in my house and I had nothing to do, really. This was during the financial crisis, too. I was doing a lot of commercial work, but that had kind of dried up and I became a full-time mom for a while. I was like, “Oh my god…this sucks!” It just does. You lose all sense of yourself and you feel that everything you’re doing is sacrificing for your kids. I lost myself for a bit.

Before we get into the film, could you talk a bit about the IFP Lab, the grants you received, and other support you’ve gotten for the film?
The film community is one of my favorite things of which to talk. The independent film community has really come to the table for Concussion. It started with the IFP Narrative Lab, and we halted editing to do a finishing lab with IFP in New York. That lab is led by Amy Dodson, Joana Vicente, who’s head of IFP, and Scott Macaulay, who runs Filmmaker Magazine. It’s a wonderful team that they have. What they do is, they bring in first time filmmakers who’ve made their films for under a million dollars into a finishing lab, and they teach them about what the next phase of finishing editorial–color, sound, composing, score. A lot of us have had that experience of doing all of that, but they gave us a lot of resources, etc.

The next part of it was independent distribution. They want to find a home for these films. John Reiss comes in and does the indie distribution part of it. He wrote a book called Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul with Sheri Chandler. They’re very interested in making sure all their films find either homes at distribution or have the tools for self distribution, which I thought was so awesome. It was actually the best week of my life. Through IFP many grants came as well.

Best week of your life?
IFP was one of the best professional weeks of my life because I love sitting and learning from people. It’s my favorite thing to do. It was an amazing experience. The best week of my life was Sundance.

You got a ton of support there.
I owe a lot to the programmers at Sundance, and I think John Cooper really got behind Concussion along with Trevor Groth, John Nein, Shari Frilot, Kim Yutani, Caroline Libresco…all of them. I was fortunate because at the beginning I thought, well, there are eight women directors in competition and I’m just one of them. The token gay girl or whatever. Throughout that week what I learned was that I wasn’t the token anything. I was pushed to be my own thing in many ways. They were so incredibly generous about talking about the film. They pushed me to USA Today…it was insane! We got a lot of great publicity. When Radius came and wanted to distribute the film we thought, “This is a miracle!” This just doesn’t happen. That was the best week ever. (laughs)

The film is about suburbia and feminism, but it’s about more than that. What’s at the core of the film?
I believe that finding one’s self is the subject of one’s life. Clarity. I think that’s at the core of the film for me. Many will find a take on marriage. I think we have to look at ourselves and our partners from time to time and assess what we want to do with the rest of our lives. I think the aspirations of somebody who’s 46 or 43 are very different from somebody who’s in their mid 20’s. I think that when I say that, people in my state of advanced age sort of start nodding their heads. We’ve gone through a lot of the milestones already. We’ve seen our children born, we’ve made some money. But still, there’s an emptiness. If you’re sacrificing yourself to find legitimacy, sometimes that can take its toll. I think those are some of the themes in the film. I think it’s something people like to talk about. It feeds the soul a little bit.

It’s a personal, intimate film, but I think everybody can relate to something in there.
Well, that’s the bet. I think the absence of the male figure in the film makes it sort of relatable for men. I think they feel very vindicated when they watch the film. They might feel titillated, which I love. It’s great, because the film is about sexuality and finding what makes you tick, sexually. Also, it’s a good film for people to look at two people together and find that it’s not always about gender dynamics. It’s about when two people stop having sex and what that looks like in a marriage.

There’s this thing called the Bechdel Test. If two women characters in a work of fiction talk to each other about something other than a man, it passes. Concussion passes!
I’ve never heard about that!

I think films like this are really valuable by this measure.
Thank you. My approach to subject matter is that it has to speak to me. I’m thinking about all the films I want to do, and I don’t think that issue would’ve even come up. All of the things that turn me on aren’t those old kind of ideas. It’s very interesting. There are two things that can be done. One, we can have more women talking to men about their issues, and two, we can have women talk to each other about things that aren’t about men. I don’t know…I just feel like people should do their work. I love men and I love talking about them. I think they’re wonderfully interesting creatures, just like women. In this case, it’s a personal film. Some of the themes are very much about empowerment, and her sexual goals did not involve men, so it was just a matter of what turned her on. It has a lot to do with being gay, certainly. There are absolutely tons of layers, like the fight for legitimacy and the toll that it can take when it’s really all about money and a house in the suburbs. Those are the gay issues in the film. When people say it’s not a gay film, I want to be like, “Well, maybe you’re not that straight of an audience.” You know what I mean? It has a lot of gay themes, and it has a universality about it that a lot of people seem to find.

I want to get into how you shoot intimacy. At my screening, there were some gasps, some…
Squirming?

Yes, some squirming.
I can see that you’re seeing something in your mind right now. What is it exactly? I’m interested. What was the squirmy part?

I’m picturing the scene with the young student sitting in a chair and Robin kneels down in front of her. A lot of people in the theater looked very, very nervous.
Do you remember your first kiss?

Yes.
That’s what it was. Robin and I both knew that that scene was about her first kiss. This is a woman who’s so shut down that she starts over again in many ways. I approached the whole thing as a big orgasm. There’s a build to it. It goes back to the very beautiful woman in the film who seduces Robin. That moment where she pulls Robin to her and it’s almost like Robin is a walker. She’s like stone. I was like, “You’re a column. You’re stone. You don’t know what you’re doing or how this all works anymore.” By the time Robin gets to the [student], it really is her first kiss. She learns a little more until she finds her “animal” self.

Talk a bit about Robin and her performance.
Early on, we thought about the arc of the character. I told her that the character punishes herself with exercise, and Robin came back three months later and she had all these muscles on her and lost all this weight. I was scared when I saw her. She’s a very tall woman, and she was a size zero. At one point, I could see the sinew in her back during the shower scene, and it was kind of sad. Sometimes, that sexiness almost became a look of hunger and desperation. As the film goes on, she finds a way to satiate her hunger. She knew that going in, and she created that arc beautifully. She’s a brilliant person and a wonderful collaborative partner. I don’t know that the film would be anything without her.

What were you looking for when you were casting that role?
I wanted to create an immersive experience. I feel like our culture has gotten so conservative that we’re afraid to go there, and I wanted someone to be able to go there with me. I said, “This isn’t going to be an expensive project, but it’s going to be expensive to your soul.” The way I wanted to do this was the way directors of the golden age of film did it–with their whole heart. I wasn’t afraid, but Robin was afraid. As we talked, she became less afraid. She can go there. That’s the beautiful thing about her. She’s just a well–there are no limits to what she can do. When I realized that, I knew we had something special because that satisfied my urge and hunger to go there creatively, and I think hers as well.

Will you talk a bit about David Kruta, your DP, and the look of the film? The colors are great.
I love to talk about David. He was a camera operator, a DIT by trade, and he shot some shorts. I loved his reel, and the thing I loved about him most was that he knew, technically, how to achieve the looks that we both wanted. The type of framing we wanted. The thing I love about him was that sometimes he saved me from myself. I’m a big fan of alternative framing and kind of “going there”. I think David really knew what this piece was, and he shot what the piece needed to be rather than some of the kooky ideas that I had. I really appreciated his steadiness throughout the process. In the chaos, when you’re doing that amount of acting, you’re doing that amount of directing and you’re really getting into these characters, you need somebody steady and somebody who can help in that way. David was always ready. We dared a little bit with the color. We took some chances. I find that a lot of digital is looking a little too creamy. We were encouraged by our producer to find the look that we wanted, so we really heightened blacks and played with that quite a bit. I think we came to a look that we felt was important for the character and the tone of the piece. I don’t know that I would make another film that looks exactly like that–it’s not necessarily going to be my way–but I felt that this piece deserved that look because of who she was.

After writing and directing your debut film, are you still open to doing films that you don’t both write and direct?
Sure. I’m a collaborator. I didn’t grow up in a world where I could call the shots. I grew up in a world where I was serving clients. That really helped make this film better. I was able to listen to my producer Rose and my editor, executive producer, and collaborator Anthony Cupo. I was very, very involved in collaboration. Rose and I would rewrite scenes, Robin would help rewrite scenes. We really played with it, and that’s something that you have to do in commercial work. You have to serve many masters. I believe in listening to people and making decisions on how to put the puzzle pieces together. I think I’d be really good at helping guide the voice of another writer. It’s something I’m definitely interested in doing.

How does it feel to have the film screening in San Francisco at Frameline?
I always get choked up when anything involves community of any kind. I’m a part of many communities–I’m a part of a suburban community with my friends and I’m part of a Jewish community–but the one that’s the most important for my soul is the gay community. It’s an incredibly important moment for the film and for us as a team. We’re absolutely thrilled to be here.

With Concussion, first-time writer-director Stacie Passon gives us a glimpse into the doldrums of lesbian suburbia and how a bored housewife (Robin Weigert), awakened to her unfulfilling malaise by her son (who conks her in the head with a baseball), attempts to unleash her true inner-self by becoming a hooker. Unoriginal this movie is not, in a most beautiful, sensual, riveting way.

Stars Robin Weigert and Jonathan Tchaikovsky chatted with us in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel just days after the film played to a vivacious, raucous crowd at the Castro Theater for the Frameline Film Festival back in June. We discussed the amazing crowd at the Castro, Robin’s physical performance, Jonathan relishing the role of eye candy, what’s really at the core of the film, what gay males can connect with in the film, Rainer Maria Rilke, and more.

Read our interview with director Stacie Passon

How was the screening the other night at the Castro?
Robin Weigert: It was so fun!

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: The warmth of that room was so unique and original. It was wonderful.

Robin Weigert: It was genuinely so different than other screenings. Not that there was anything wrong with those screenings, but this was a particularly embracing, generous, attentive, responsive crowd.

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: It was so fun. It was like we were all playing together.

Robin Weigert: The laughter was great. You could feel people resonating with it, and that was incredibly gratifying.

I saw two screenings; the one at the Castro and a much smaller press screening.
Jonathan Tchaikovsky: What was that like?

Well, it seemed like the drama hit harder at the press screening and the humor hit much, much harder at the Frameline screening.
Robin Weigert: What’s nice is that there’s genuinely both. You can take it in, at least in parts of it. You can ride on the humor for a long time, or you can just take in the pathos! (laughs) You’ve got both options!

There’s your scene, Robin, with the young student where you kneel down in front of her as a bit of foreplay.
Robin Weigert: In that scene, the discomfort is partly that she feel so young and virginal. I think you genuinely don’t want her to be violated, in a way. She’s got her little backpack on, and the thought is, “Where will this go?” What’s lovely is that it goes to a place that’s sexual in a way, but it’s also gentle and empathetic. It’s scenes like that that give the dynamic feel that she’s more of a sex surrogate than a hooker. She’s nurturing through the act of sex in some of these scenarios. There’s something almost therapeutic in that relationship.

This is a sexy, sexy film.
Robin Weigert: Can’t get away from that! (laughs)

Lesbians will find it titillating, straight men will find it titillating, and straight women can find a lot of feminist themes to latch on to. How does it play with gay men? Have you spoken with any gay men who’ve seen the film?
Robin Weigert: A friend of mine, who’s a gay woman, says she actually finds the aesthetic of the film to be very gay male, which is to say, it’s very aesthetic–period. It’s got a visual beauty, and it’s not a typical lesbian film in the sense that it doesn’t get into a gritty, messy, disassembled place. I almost think it has something of a gay male aesthetic. Some gay men–not all–are repulsed by certain feminine things, and I don’t think this movie’s going to gross them out. It doesn’t put their face in it, so to speak. I also think that there’s something wonderfully exculpating for your surrogate as someone who’s unfaithful in a relationship to be a woman. It lets you off the hook in a certain way–you identify, but you don’t have to feel indicted for behavior that you might wish to engage in yourself. You can identify with my character as someone who’s extremely libidinous and isn’t satisfied within a relationship–dilemmas gay men deal with all the time. The fact that your surrogate on screen is a female allows you to look at the situation psychologically without feeling indicted by it. I think that’s a place where gay men can connect with it.

What a fantastic answer!
Robin Weigert: I speak in paragraphs! (laughs)

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: Your answer was so beautiful! Mine’s much more shallow…

Robin Weigert: Somebody hit on you! (laughs)

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: Yeah, I got hit on! (laughs) I had a group of guys come up, and they were like, “We’re all gay, and thank god you’re in the movie.” That was the response I got, but I did ask a couple of my gay friends what they thought of the story and everything. One comment I got was from my manager. He loved it. He felt that it was a surrogate for him, in a way. I think part of it was that all of the sex scenes were shot in daylight. It wasn’t dark or ashamed in any way. There was a ferocity to it, even in the way it was presented visually. There are white sheets, a lot of sunlight coming through–it’s like, let’s really enjoy looking at the person we desire. Let’s be unashamed and really enjoy the fact that I want this individual. I think that boost of confidence, in a way, came through for him. For me, I was wearing a tool belts and tank tops the whole shoot. (laughs)

Robin Weigert: Incidentally, Jonathan was looking very hot for the entire film! It was a coincidence. (laughs)

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: It was nice to reverse it in a way and kind of let myself be…not objectified…but be a showpiece in that regard. So often in the history of cinema, the female role is such a showpiece, and to have that reversed and to be…

Robin Weigert: Being the eye candy.

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: Yeah, being the eye candy. I’m like a fun puppy to play with that gets to keep everything kind of relaxed and grounded. There’s not much at stake for me, really, until he realizes, “Oh shit, we’re affecting lives here.”

I was talking to Stacie the other day about the Bechdel Test–if a movie contains two female characters who talk about something other than a man, it passes. From this perspective, I think Concussion is quite valuable.
Robin Weigert: There was a beautiful scene in Mad Men that struck me for that very reason. That show has been breaking new ground recently. [In the scene], two women were talking about ways to have power in the office. It was such a striking moment. They were figuring out whose way was the best way to run the office. It wasn’t a cat fight.

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: A lot of times female characters are trying to fight each other or scheme against each other. That’s a result of a patriarchal type of surrounding.

Robin Weigert: What’s interesting to me is that I get a little nervous hit when I see that. “Is that allowed in public?!” It’s so rare. It feels like a “eureka” every time you see women deal with something like that on screen. This film revolves around sex–which is not atypical–but in a very different way. I like the way the film invites conversation because there could be people who would want to argue that it’s once again the idea of empowerment through sex and others that could be making the argument you’re making. I like it as a conversation piece, and that’s what it’s been for a lot of my friends who have seen it. They talk about it, they talk about it the next day, the felt about it, they thought about it. [The film] doesn’t solve anything for you. It just keeps things open to conversation.

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: From its humanity, to the issues it addresses, to what it says about sexuality and removing gender roles in a way, this is a film that my friends who don’t work within the industry wanted to see again.

Stacie mentioned the scene you two have together where you’re working on fixing up a wall in the apartment. I think that scene is unique because Jonathan’s character–who is a complete “dude”, with hammers and power tools and boots–is giving his lesbian friend advice about her wife. It’s very rare to come across a scene like that.
Robin Weigert: I think one of the sources of comedy is this woman, who’s going through a midlife crisis, rather than going to some wise sage and saying, “Tell me, how shall I proceed?”, she goes to these kids! (laughs) Guide me! How do I become what I must become, old wise one! (laughs) It’s like she’s saying, “How does one be free?”

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: “Try making some bad decisions with us! It’s a lot of fun!”

Robin, you deliver the dialog beautifully, but a lot of your performance is very physical–your body language is so emotive.
Robin Weigert: It’s funny, somebody asked about my facial expressions. Those are inadvertent for me. I have a face that’s very transparent. It’s not a set of choices on my part. The amount of work I did on my body for the film was so that I could forget about my body. I didn’t want to think about my body or have self conscious thoughts. Everything in the script had to do with–in that suburban effort of perfection–how much time she spends on herself. There’s the aspect of a gerbil on a treadmill, endlessly cycling along toward nothing, but just trying to do it right. That’s such a huge aspect of how she’s trying to make it work for herself, by killing herself in that way. I think it did something chemically to me, to be in that mode where I was on a restricted calorie count and doing a lot of working out. You’re humming to a different frequency when you’re doing that. There’s a sexual hunger to it, but there’s also a miasma to it, like you’re lost inside yourself. It’s oddly very dulling.

There’s that great shot of you sitting next to that mountain of laundry.
Robin Weigert: Yeah, and it feels like that.

Robin, it must have been nerve-wracking to watch this movie with a room full of strangers for the first few times, since you put so much of yourself out there physically. Has it gotten less frightening as you’ve traveled with the film more?
Robin Weigert: Yes, and this screening was the least frightening, because it was like a celebration. It’s nice to have that. The most frightening was the first screening at Sundance. I had never seen [the film] all the way through. I looked to my left, and it was all men with badges. They all seemed very austere. I imagined them having incredibly critical thoughts. My belly turned to acid as I was sitting there. “I’ve come to my execution!” (laughs) This screening was great. I don’t think there’s any person, straight or gay, who doesn’t have some adolescent shame around sexuality. I think that there’s a way in which getting to be the opposite of punished for being expressive of yourself sexually in front of people is a healing thing. I think it’s a beautiful thing that everyone should experience. Everyone should make a movie about being a hooker! (laughs) Because, you’ve done the thing that’s very frightening, and people are saying, “Yes! That’s great!” (laughs) It’s surreal.

The film has feminist themes, gay themes, sexual themes. What is at the core of Concussion to you?
Jonathan Tchaikovsky: The nation is in a state of pubescence, almost. We’re not that old yet, we’re still new, we’re a little sexually confused, we’re kind of aggressive. This film touches on the humanity that we sometimes have to relinquish to the possibility of what might tear us down and see how strong our legs really are.

Robin Weigert: I just feel like I’m going to sound so pretentious!

Jonathan Tchaikovsky: I just called our entire country a teenager. (laughs) You’re okay!

Robin Weigert: I would go to Rilke for my answer, which is to say the highest form of love relationship is two people managing to be the guardians of each others’ solitude, which is his expression. We engage in our relationships without that in mind. We imagine our partner is supposed to solve everything for us, and feed us in every way we need to be fed. In whatever way people work it out with each other, in terms of monogamy or non-monogamy or whatever their particular solution to the dilemma is, I think the most loving thing you can be for someone else is someone who can stand at the door and allow you to be your full self. That’s the hardest thing to give one another. It requires letting go of everything to get to that point. I know I’m laying that on top of the film–I don’t think Stacie explicitly goes after that–but the more I see it, the more I get that from it. In the scene between the two women on the steps, which is this sort of reckoning that’s wonderfully underwritten, what I see is two people who are seeing each other for the first time. They’re looking with full recognition of who they are and their weaknesses, and full recognition of who the other is, and their weaknesses. I feel like they arrive at a starting place.