I never saw the previous film nor read the book so I went into this series not knowing much about it, and being totally ignorant to it all. What I finally figured out about the Girlfriend Experience is that it was just that, a young woman pushing herself off as giving men that GF experience while trying to find out who she was and wrestling with her self with loving it beyond her advertised GF experience and conflicted by it.
The main character, who goes by as many different names as she would like them to be out of body personas, will come across as a cold, mechanical, bland; and that is the beauty of this. It is played to this type of perfection by Riley Keough. I expected the complete opposite type of acting from the subject matter, but this is so raw, so "everyday", that you have to take notice, and she is doing it very well with quiet enthusiasm - if you were to embrace such a thing - she has in this role.
Christine is an Ivy league trained smart woman, who does...this. Why? She does knows why. We're trying to understand why, and she is trying to understand and do at the same time; it is the psychological and moral battle she is going through which is producing a cold exterior as a calculating call girl emerges.
For those seeking a titillating romp through the woods type of thing, this is not what this is. This is cold. It can be unemotional. This is a 'nothing' is happening when 'everything' is happening around this character. She is trying to sell herself as a GF Experience when it is clear (at least to me) she's a paid call girl. That 'GF Experience' is all she has to justify to herself that she's be "above" that. Until reality hits.
The character cannot shut out the real world around her. And the real world around her is unflinching, judgmental, torrent and easily brands her as the thing she feels she is not. But she is. We are watching her struggle footing between both worlds as she is clearly drawn to one. She's comfortable with it, it pleasures her and she uses that as a reason to separate the two. The production is gray, sterile - not warm at all -- so you are to feel her and her world and her turmoil. The camera angles are deliberately designed not to excite because although the character says she likes this and you would assume to see her liking this, it's still mechanical, boring, lifeless. Just as she is.
This is also showing us how society doesn't buy into her GF Experience ideal. So, the character needs to retaliate by trying to use her ivy league brain against her obvious pleasures. Who knows if it will work or if it will just put a blanket over it while the character learns maybe there isn't a difference between her GF Experience and calling it as it is perceived.
This little series is done really well based on those items mentioned above. For those wanting more on the super-sexy side, this isn't the program for you. It is a program with a character trying to be what she wants and what society makes of it all. You leave this with the conclusion that her life is her own and whatever she decides to do, it is what she has to answer to whether it satisfies her pleasures or not. She is learning that it is not her own closed little world to manipulate, to live in without preconceptions and judgments by her clients, the social internet, by her peers -- and by us, the viewer.
The main character, who goes by as many different names as she would like them to be out of body personas, will come across as a cold, mechanical, bland; and that is the beauty of this. It is played to this type of perfection by Riley Keough. I expected the complete opposite type of acting from the subject matter, but this is so raw, so "everyday", that you have to take notice, and she is doing it very well with quiet enthusiasm - if you were to embrace such a thing - she has in this role.
Christine is an Ivy league trained smart woman, who does...this. Why? She does knows why. We're trying to understand why, and she is trying to understand and do at the same time; it is the psychological and moral battle she is going through which is producing a cold exterior as a calculating call girl emerges.
For those seeking a titillating romp through the woods type of thing, this is not what this is. This is cold. It can be unemotional. This is a 'nothing' is happening when 'everything' is happening around this character. She is trying to sell herself as a GF Experience when it is clear (at least to me) she's a paid call girl. That 'GF Experience' is all she has to justify to herself that she's be "above" that. Until reality hits.
The character cannot shut out the real world around her. And the real world around her is unflinching, judgmental, torrent and easily brands her as the thing she feels she is not. But she is. We are watching her struggle footing between both worlds as she is clearly drawn to one. She's comfortable with it, it pleasures her and she uses that as a reason to separate the two. The production is gray, sterile - not warm at all -- so you are to feel her and her world and her turmoil. The camera angles are deliberately designed not to excite because although the character says she likes this and you would assume to see her liking this, it's still mechanical, boring, lifeless. Just as she is.
This is also showing us how society doesn't buy into her GF Experience ideal. So, the character needs to retaliate by trying to use her ivy league brain against her obvious pleasures. Who knows if it will work or if it will just put a blanket over it while the character learns maybe there isn't a difference between her GF Experience and calling it as it is perceived.
This little series is done really well based on those items mentioned above. For those wanting more on the super-sexy side, this isn't the program for you. It is a program with a character trying to be what she wants and what society makes of it all. You leave this with the conclusion that her life is her own and whatever she decides to do, it is what she has to answer to whether it satisfies her pleasures or not. She is learning that it is not her own closed little world to manipulate, to live in without preconceptions and judgments by her clients, the social internet, by her peers -- and by us, the viewer.