The Girlfriend Experience

Here in Australia there is an extraordinary statistic which tells us that the majority of students at the biggest university in the country work in the sex industry. You see, study is expensive. Who wants to slave away at McDonald's for hours after class to buy books and pay off student loans when you can make ten times that much for a fraction of the time spent? There is obviously an interesting movie to be made here. This is not that movie. I knew a girl who paid her way through law school by working as an escort. Any one of her stories about "clients" would be more interesting than this.

As the title implies, Chelsea/Christine, the main character, is an escort who also goes out on dates with her clients. She also meets regularly with a journalist who is apparently writing an article about her. This is funny, because as either Christine or Chelsea, the prostitute alter ego, this woman doesn't say a single interesting thing throughout the entire movie. The only interesting characters are the "clients", and yet they're paying Chelsea for her time, not just for sex.

It is tempting to critique Sasha Grey's performance, but the script doesn't give her much to do right, let alone wrong. It's a one note character, and a one note performance.

"The Girlfriend Experience" also refrains from making any kind of statement about this strange, shocking situation that so many students are in now. It's just Chelsea visiting different men.

It has occurred to me that the repetition of these scenes makes it deliberately confusing as to who the men are. At first, you assume they are all clients Chelsea is servicing. Then, you realise that Chelsea is Christine with some, one is a boyfriend, the other is a journalist interviewing her. Is the point that for someone in Christine's situation, men are interchangeable, and it is hard to tell clients from spouses? This is not the way any of the real-life sex workers I have heard from describe their work and private lives, but hey, I'll take meaning where I can get it.

This movie felt like it had potential. It's not often that films try to take a serious look at the world of prostitution. This, however, was a downright mess. It was a terribly contrived attempt at being being hip, indie, and sexy and only managed to land the part that it was independent. The script was AWFUL. The only thing any of these characters ever spent any amount of time discussing with one another was the economic crisis and the presidential elections and that's it, quite literally. If I wanted to listen to more financial rhetoric I would have turned on the news. What about exploring the effects the sex trade has on personal relationships? Or the people involved? Look elsewhere if you're interested in the humanity of these individuals because none is displayed here... And sexy? Please. There is no sensuality to this film and barely even sexuality, which is surprising considering how the entire premise of the film is built around sex. There is no sex and only one or two nude scenes that I can recall, which has become pretty standard for practically any independent film these days.

Sasha Grey is a downright disaster. There's a reason why she does porn - she can't act! This girl maintains the same stone cold, dead-eyed expression and tone throughout the ENTIRE film (save for ONE scene where she laughs with a client). Apparently she only has two expressions, bored and orgasm (referring to her adult films). In this film we only see the first... For that matter, all of the characters are one dimensional, flat, and boring.

I had to quite literally force myself to watch this garbage. Save your time and money and skip over this dud.

A brilliant little film, economic in its resources and smart in its complex editing. However, this is not destined to be a box office hit. It is the kind of film that Soderbergh does once in a while in-between pop flicks to avoid getting bored.

Sasha Grey delivers some good acting as an ambiguously shallow and ambitious prostitute who tries to survive the post-Obama post-Crisis world of depressed clients and worried boyfriend. Her relationship with her costumers and other professionals who are part of the escort world is built little by little in several out-of-order scenes. Most people will find the movie's timeline confusing, but all you have to do is pay attention to her wardrobe and everything will be fine.

I must also note the soundtrack, that makes use of very interesting unknown music. I specially liked the street drummer.

The images are beautiful enough to make one think "well, not bad for a movie shot on digital". Besides the old-school narrative (in the sense that it belongs more to the Bergman era than to the "Wolverine III" era) this movie looks and feels like the new kind of cinema that cheap digital shooting offers. And I like the way it feels.

IN A NUTSHELL: For Sasha Grey and Soderbergh fans and people who actually care about cinema language. If you like Soderbergh because of "Ocean's Eleven", stay away.

This film gets a 5/10 from me because mostly it was in focus and not too hostile to the viewer.

That said, let me start at the end, and say that I was at once relieved that the tedium was over, and annoyed that almost no story had been told, no character really developed. It doesn't even qualify as an abstractly artistic experience.

Soderbergh is by no means my favourite director, but he has been responsible for some at least competent film-making in the past, which is why I went to see this film, in addition to the subject sounding interesting.

But I am just shocked not to be able to find anything good to recommend this film except that it's in focus, and you can identify a main character or two. The sound, cinematography, and editing are otherwise among the worst I've ever experienced. The story just barely exists. In a way, the film is worth seeing just to see how not to make a film.

I could go on about what I wish had been different, but really, what's the point? It's beyond repair.

I will say it's better than Last Days by Gus Van Sant. If you liked that, you'll probably love this.

And don't get me wrong. I like those movies too: In the mood for love, from WKW. Genius!

But here... nothing does really work. First of all: Sasha Grey - she might be good at moaning and stuff, but as a real actress: she looks bored out of her frickin mind the whole movie! And that was how i felt the whole movie! Once again, not much happens in the movie, what would be fine if you compensated it with character development, or beautiful shots, or even some nice editing not to mention soundtrack. But nothing of that is really there. Im a big fan of fragmented editing but it doesn't work if you have no story to tell! Also the excessive comments about elections and the economics moment in the movie, will just make it look outdated in a few years. hell, i just watched it and felt it a lil outdated.

there's no commercial appeal in this movie, and no art appeal either. there were exactly 8 people in the theater besides me and my GF. And none of them seemed very enthusiastic when the lights were on again.