Maggie Siff (right) and Robin Weigert play neighbors who get close in “Concussion.”
Credit: RADiUS-TWC
They haven’t been nominated for any major awards, but that’s voters’ faults for not recognizing Robin Weigert and Maggie Siff. They gave two of last year’s best performances in “Concussion,” a sprightly, sneaky indie you can stream right here:
A decade Chris Rock defended gay marriage, saying homosexuals “have the right to be as miserable as everybody else.” That’s what’s happened to “Concussion”’s 40-something hero Abby (Weigert, “Deadwood”), who’s in a stilted, sexless suburban gay marriage, with kids. An accidental baseball to the head becomes the catalyst that gets Abby to make a curious decision: By day she retires to the Manhattan apartment she’s rehabbing and offers her services as a high-end prostitute.
Homosexuality is treated casually (when Abby refers to “my wife,” no one bats an eye), but that’s part of the sly commentary; as a lesbian, she’s still treated as a mysterious outsider, as when a bi-curious neighbor (Siff, “Sons of Anarchy”) becomes a client. It’s Luis Bunuel’s surrealist “Belle de Jour,” in which wife Catherine Deneuve takes a job at the local brothel, in a realistic bent — but not too realistic. First-time director Stacie Passon establishes a quasi-comic tone that’s at once assured and uneasy, while Weigert is thrillingly anxious, coming into her own only when tending to clients.
Read our interview with star Robin Weigert right here.
Stream other movies on our site here.
