What, exactly, is going on in ''Luminous Motion''? The movie scarcely lives up to its title -- its tone is stilted and mannered -- and most of it seems a bit loony until you realize that Gordon, adapting a novel by Scott Bradfield (the script is by Bradfield and Robert Roth), has recast the story as a feminist allegory. Unger's mom, while guilty of a parental neglect that borders on child abuse, is the sozzled, depressive martyr who destroys herself to flee the suffocation of men. Her various mates are the patriarchy's toy soldiers: stiff, myopic souls who strive to inflict their petty order on everyone around them.
Gordon is known for her one previous feature, the scrappy 1985 indie ''Variety,'' an East Village parable of liberation through porn that managed to find little joy in either of them. In ''Luminous Motion,'' she has gained some visual flair, but she still treats moviemaking as a form of thesis writing. It's Gordon, and not just the world, who's trapping people in their genders.
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