The Girlfriend Experience (2009) User Reviews

Tedious

[Groverdox · 5/10 · 24 April 2017]

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.

Bleh! Don't waste your time. Even if it is Soderbergh.

[peter-543-821985 · 4/10 · 30 September 2009]

OK, somewhere between 1 and 5.. Look, I'm a fairly big Soderbergh fan, Solaris - perfect!, Kafka (where can I buy this now!!), Sex Lies., The Good German and etc.. But what the heck was this movie? I was waiting during the entire movie for the "it's about to get interesting", it has to get interesting because the acting sucks.. right?.. "it's just about to get.. " nope. It never was interesting. And oh I had high hopes for Sasha, not that I know who she is because I had to look her up on Google. But because I love to root for the underdog - thinking just maybe a porn star really could break into mainstream. Oh right, that kinda sorta did happen once from that porn star from the 80's Traci lords.

Despite how 'high brow' Sasha is supposed to be, she was anything but barely interesting during the entire movie. I'm not sure if it was her acting or the script. Hard to tell.

Seriously, this is bad indie at best. It was almost like it was trying to be an indie film, but Sasha Grey didn't have really any interesting lines, she just sat there with uninteresting (understatement) responses. She did cry well, that was about the most challenging part - again the script.

Too bad, I thought this was going to be good by reading those reviews on the box (ah, suckered in by the reviews again!),

I never write reviews about anything. I had to sign up for IMDb just to write this. :) Other than this film, however, Soderbergh rocks, and Sasha Grey probably could act if challenged. She is certainly interesting to look at both in the screen charisma sense and in the other sense.

Well, it was only 5 bucks at BB and 2 hours of my time.

another film "nothing happens" style

[ronaldbkg · 4/10 · 28 August 2009]

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.

Dull and lifeless Sasha Grey, dull and lifeless film (some spoiler)

[jraubach1-1 · 2/10 · 17 June 2009]

I don't normally write movie reviews, or even talk about movies in any sort of detail, but after seeing this earlier tonight I feel absolutely compelled to warn people about what they're about to see.

The movie revolves around the emotionally vapid and thoroughly uninteresting escort, Christine, played by Sasha Grey. We don't really know anything about her other than the fact that she believes in some kind of pseudoscience that apparently *isn't* astrology (though it holds that people's birthdays alone provide determinate information about their personality...), and, well, that's she's an escort. She also has a boyfriend, Chris, who works as a personal trainer and reveals himself to be the most emotionally connected person in the film. This isn't saying much. His acting is merely passable, and his character is just above tolerable.

Anyway, we watch Christine go on date after date of painfully awkward and forced conversation, and then we hear a voice-over reading of her diary where we're told about the ensuing sexual encounter (or lack thereof).

Three encounters stand out:

One is the guy we are introduced to at the beginning of the film. He's the least slovenly and most sensitive, but he ends up preferring the service of another escort. Christine feels slightly rejected. That's it. No more development there.

Another noteworthy (relatively speaking) encounter is between her and some guy from L.A. with a wife and kids. He's in New York temporarily on a job related task, and he ends up deciding to stay there for the weekend so he can have some extra time with Christine. Christine is so excited to spend the weekend with this man whose birth date is indicative of compatibility that she essentially sabotages her relationship with Chris. The guy rents her a car and tells her to meet him at a hotel, but he has a change of heart after video chatting with his kids. He bails, she's sad, and Chris apparently still stays with her after the mishap.

Finally, there's a repulsive porn mogul or pimp of some sort who essentially propositions Christine to service him in exchange for a good review and some "career opportunities." It's implied he makes her do some degrading things involving a Q-tip, but we don't really know what or why. We just know that he sucks and writes a scathing review of her. The review reads like a description of the movie with a few genital details thrown in.... Christine, the review says, represents the "nadir of passion," and is marked by a "flat affect." Perhaps this movie is more reflexive than it aims to be.

There's not too much going on when the film is focused on Christine's emotional pettiness or the creepiness of her clients. Every fifteen minutes or so we are bombarded with the drunken fraternizing of what seems to be Chris and four CEO types on an personal jet. They have obnoxious and inarticulate exchanges about the economy (the typical 'Obama... money-out-of-my-pockets... where's it coming from?' type stuff) and relationships. It's either this or boring snippets of informal business meetings. The cinematography is tasteful at times, but there are scenes striving for artfulness that just result in frustrating angles and too many shadows. The cinematography doesn't make or break this film movie, though. The awkward dialog, lack of direction, and frigid characters are what kill it.

Sure, this movie's supposed to be rife with social commentary, but this commentary doesn't go very far beyond the truism that the wealthy want to stay wealthy, or that lots of people do bad things to get ahead. We see that the financial worries of the elite are often marked by the same half-baked fiscal libertarianism and vague economic metaphors of your average small town Joe. Or maybe that wasn't his point. I don't really know. I just know that we're subjected to about a total of thirty minutes of muddled conversations about the economy that usually conclude that investing in gold is your safest bet, and things are only going downhill from here. The film ends *SPOILER ALERT* with a cheap shot at the financial elite -- we get a caricatured "capitalist Jew" telling Christine to vote for McCain right before he prematurely ejaculates at her aloof and hesitant embrace. Deep stuff.

Eyes Wide Shut 2

[tieman64 · 13 June 2009]

"The Girlfriend Experience" is another fascinating Soderbergh effort, in hindsight a precursor to "Contagion". Some unformed thoughts...

1. Every scene here revolves around money, upgrading one's business or advertising/self-promotion. Every character is busy trying to "take it to the next level", desperate to "up their income", rake in more cash, conquer the competition and expand their client base.

2. Like "Eyes Wide Shut", this is a world in which everybody is a commodity, indiscriminately passed around and traded. Unlike Kubrick's film, however, everyone here is quite happy to network, pimp, share information and engage in mutual exploitation. But money is not neutral. Ever.

3. Conversations throughout the film feel more like boardroom meetings or job interviews and the film's central romance is essentially one big business negotiation.

4. The precursor here is Antonioni via Kubrick. Still, it's a very throw-away film. Soderbergh needs to put more effort into his "art house" pictures. His Blockbusters look lovely; this is rushed.

5. The film's central character is played by Sasha Grey, a pornographic actress. There is some self-reference in the casting: Grey is herself a fairly driven personality, relentlessly using the film/Hollywood/porn scene to promote her name. Still, the film questions the lines between ambition and degradation.

6. In the film, Sasha follows a new age religion based on "books" and "numbers". Like a stock market spreadsheet, this mathematical religion essentially assigns numerical values and "worth" to people and things. Sasha dumps her boyfriend and "upgardes" to a new man based purely on the "religious signs" generated by this religion. The big shock of the film is that the wholly irrational "number religion" - a kind of comic take on late capitalism and free-market fundamentalism - fails Sasha and allows her to leave a man who genuinely loved her. IE: it is genuine human relationships that are meaningful, rather than cold economic currency.

7. You'd think that a film called "The Girlfriend Experience", which centres on a high class hooker, would examine Sasha's clientèle and show how she copes with the multiple "personalities" and "fantasies" which she must generate and project for her various customers. But no. There is no sex in this film (the sex, the whoring, is implicitly the exchange of currency - the commodification of all bodies) and Sasha's interactions with her clients are kept to a minimum. When we do see Sasha with her customers, she adopts a blank, very uncluttered, very uninterested, tone. Rather than create fantasy personas for her clients, the implication is that she is a blank slate upon which her customers project their desires. Sasha need not do anything more than turn up to her appointments and exist as a screen for these projections to take place.

8. All Sasha's clients are implicitly aware that they're paying for a fraud. It's a consensual charade. The "faith-system" runs on shared make believe. When faith runs own...the system crashes.

9. The cliché in these situations is that the client falls romantically for the hooker/stripper/call girl, not realising that it's all an act, but in Sorderbergh's film the reverse occurs. It is Sasha who naively falls for the customer, believing that he genuinely cares for her and intends to leave his wife and family to live with her. In a society where fantasies rapidly proliferate, it is now some pastoral, domestic bliss, some realm of innocence "outside" the board-game, that Sasha longingly wish for.

10. By avoiding "sex", is Sorderbergh trying to avoid romanticising Sasha's profession? By abstractly equating prostitution with "every other job" (very Marxist...but he directed "Che" shortly before), does he unintentionally romanticise prostitution anyway?

11. Though Sorderbergh omits the sex that Sasha has with her clients, he always includes an "after or before sex" scene in which they have a conversation. These conversations always consist of the client offering Sasha business advice or financial assistance. She alternates from a business savvy, "modern professional", to a profoundly pathetic, dead-eyed badminton shuttle, traded back and forth.

12. In one key scene, Sasha visits a website promoter whom she thinks will help publicise her. Unfortunately, this sleazy man will only assist if she performs a derogatory sex act. Because the film is so subdued and makes an effort to avoid sex, this particular "request" is genuinely shocking. It is at this moment that Sasha first seems to awaken from her "eyes wide shut" slumber. This "big revelation" moment doesn't quite work, however, as the film sets up Sasha as a single minded person who would in actuality readily do as requested. But isn't our expectation itself prejudice?

13. The film ends with a Jewish jeweller talking about the upcoming general elections, the late 2000 financial crisis, the Israeli/Palestine conflict and the price of gold. He takes his clothes off and then gives Sasha a warm hug. The films ends on this ambiguous image.

14. We get a sense throughout the film that Sasha's clients - all businessmen and well-off personalities - turn to her to escape the uncertainties of a fluctuating economy or perhaps the dissatisfactions of a fully functioning one. She's a comforting teddy bear, but in embracing her they're ironically clinging to the very thing they're running away from. The "hyper-sweetness" of Soderbergh's final scene (lonely man hugging a woman like a wounded child) is complex: prostitution as an act of extreme desperation, torture even, for both parties, whilst simultaneously being comforting, tender in comparison to the brutal logic of late capitalism.

7.9/10 - Nice companion piece to Antonioni's "Red Desert". See Assayas' "Demonlover", "Boarding Gate" and "Summer Hours". Worth one viewing.

If they wanted you to be yourself, they wouldn't be paying you The Girlfriend Experience

[jaredmobarak · 7/10 · 7 June 2009]

I like the Ocean's movies as much as the next guy, but something about Steven Soderbergh's indie films show how much of a paycheck job those blockbusters are. His artistic endeavors may not always work—see the disappointing Ché Parts 1 & 2—but they do consistently show an auteur trying something new, challenging himself and his viewers. I have not yet seen Bubble, but 2009 brings us his second feature under the HDMovies deal, bringing his films to theatre, DVD, and TV simultaneously. That film is The Girlfriend Experience starring pornstar Sasha Grey as sophisticated escort Chelsea and her struggles in a Depression-era NYC weeks before the Presidential election. Juxtaposing her job with that of her personal trainer boyfriend—yes, the "legal" hooker has a live-in significant other; strange indeed—we catch a glimpse into the world of high-class, high-salary business and how the economy effects both them and their clients much like it does the little man such as us.

The title is an interesting choice because Grey's escort doesn't really play the girlfriend to any of her clients on screen. Mostly being used as a prostitute to men who have left their wives and children at home, her only real need to be the girlfriend is with her man Chris. This then begs the question on whether her relationship with him is also just another job. More a situation of convenience, Grey's penchant for her astrology books soon becomes more important than Chris and what they have together. One could have called the film The Boyfriend Experience because it is he—actor Chris Santos—that plays the part. She is with a different man each night, so she needs that one constant to come home to. He fills that role in her life, him being there is her payment for sex rather than the money of her true clients. If she is willing to wreck a year and a half of what they have had together in order to "see" what may come of a new client she has met once, a client married with two little girls, you know that it has all been just a game.

The economy has caused financial security to be in limbo for everyone, but it has also left the permanence of love in the fringes as well. Much like Grey's Chelsea is attempting to branch out and start a clothing boutique, not to mention expand her own escort service, Chris is trying to get a fitness line of clothes into stores on consignment if not fulltime while also shopping himself around to other gyms in the city in order to find more money. Insecurity for the future pushes them into doing things they wouldn't normally do. Chelsea is meeting with a sleazy message board operator to try and expand her exposure, having to satisfy him in order to do so and Chris is going behind the back of the gym he isn't even willing to wear a uniform for, but which he hopes to find a managerial position with. Their personal life is not untouched, however, as Grey still looks to her customers as possible love interests, serious enough to leave her constant behind without batting an eye and Santos is propositioned to go on a guy's trip to Vegas with a client—something he is willing to pass up because his girl disapproves. But then why would she be so confused when he threatens to leave her if she goes away on weekend with a customer of her own? I do not use the word proposition lightly either. Soderbergh appears to intentional show how similar these two characters are. Both are setting up appointments for clients; both are in the business of getting to know each personally, keeping a good rapport to help facilitate the want for future engagements. Chelsea whores out her body to satisfy men's sexual desires and Chris pimps out his to satisfy his gym members' need to feel good about themselves and their physiques. Both are asked to take out of town trips and both try to set themselves apart from the competition, whether other gyms or the new girl on the escort circuit. These two actors do an admirable job in their conflicted and troubled parts. They may not be quite professionals in the craft, nor does Grey quite deserve the universal praise that seems to be piling up, but they do effectively portray these roles.

In a climate that has customers on both ends in serious discussion about the upcoming election and diminishing profits from years past, (Chris's business friends taking him to Vegas continue to talk politics and Chelsea's men either try and tell her how to liquidate her funds or who to vote for, that is when they aren't on their phones while she waits in lingerie in the next room), these two are very much the exact same person. In reality, the only difference between them is that he is genuine in his love for Grey while she appears to have only a fleeting desire in him. So, I guess the title works better than I had previously thought. She is giving him the girlfriend experience, even if she does so unintentionally. Karma has its way of getting back at you, though, and Grey's mistakes and hubris soon catch up to her. While business may be booming—for now, as that message boarder's review may hurt a bit—her personal life is falling apart all around her. We may worry about how the economy will affect our livelihood and not see how unimportant it all is. If we don't find and hold onto the love in our lives, whether family, friends, etc., all the success in the world monetarily won't mean a thing.

Horrendously Dull

[attilathehoney8 · 3/10 · 18 June 2009]

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.

I Liked It

[KALE808 · 7/10 · 7 May 2009]

I've been a fan of Soderbergh for a long time. The way he shoots his films, the subjects he finds interesting, the places he takes the characters; all these things appeal to me. Also, his movies always have diverse characters, ethnically speaking, which I like.

This movie has an episodic quality. It's a day in the life sort of thing. Nothing monumental happens, but what does happen feels real. What's even better is that nothing stupid is concocted for the sake of shock value.

Sasha Grey is actually quite good. If I didn't know anything about her background, I'd still say the same thing. She not good "in spite of," she's just good.

I give it a recommend.

The most boring film ever made...

[TD_Diamond · 1/10 · 26 December 2019]

Seriously, doing the washing up is more fun than this movie. It's like, it doesn't want to be 'something' so it tries to be so 'nothing' because 'nothing' is cool. I really don't understand why this film was even made. Is there even a story? I couldn't make one out.

Manhattan Mis-o-drama

[allandray · 6/10 · 17 November 2009]

I saw this film last night on its UK premiere at the National Film Theatre (although it had previously been given a preview showing to a sell-out audience during the London Film Festival last month). Sasha Grey, the star of the film, appeared in person at the end and participated in one of the longer Q&A sessions in my, admittedly limited, experience of these events in which she batted away questions, mainly about her adult film career, with the same show of glacial insouciance that her character demonstrates in the film.

The film which is a series of episodic vignettes about the encounters, both professional and personal, of a high-priced Manhattan escort girl set in the run-up to last year's US Presidential election is not really about prostitution either as a means of earning money or as a paradigm for the despair of the human soul.

What it is really about is speed-dating, not as an extra-curricular activity but as a well-rewarded existence. The film opens with Ms Grey leaving a hotel and getting into a car and giving a deadpan account of her previous encounter with a client. She prefaces her remarks by listing her complete outfit down to her underwear since this was obviously part of the client "package" which he has purchased, if only for a short time. This sets the tone of the film as being a triumph of, quite literally, style over substance.

This is a very sanitised world with no violence, no drug-taking and even no cooking although enormous importance is attached to meals, mainly taken in commercial premises, where many important conversations take place with Chelsea describing her situation either to clients, an alternately amused and bemused girlfriend (of the platonic variety), and to a journalist. In Chelsea's profession making intelligent, if superficial, conversation is as, if not more, important than her bedroom gymnastic skills.

Whilst Ms Grey's elegant Ice Maiden, a persona she has exploited with astonishing ability in her adult film roles, is eminently watchable the main weaknesses of the film are the character and the plot. Ms Grey and her personal trainer boyfriend are mismatched and seem to have nothing in common except vapid self-regard.

There is not so much a narrative thread as a series of threads that Soderbergh pulls out then almost immediately lets drop again. The scene with the boyfriend where Chelsea tells him she is thinking of going away for the weekend with a client put me briefly in mind of Paul Snider's jealous murderous rage towards Dorothy Stratten (who emerged from the softcore world of Playboy to be on the brink of a carer as a serious actress before her untimely demise) at the end of Bob Fosse's biopic of that tragic figure, "Star 80", but it is never developed and it never becomes clear whether they patched up their differences or parted company.

The most interesting scene and the one where Chelsea almost has a "Goodbar" moment is an encounter with a blog reviewer of erotic "services", the gelatinous self styled "Erotic Connoisseur" . This stands out in sharp contrast to the rest of the film as the dialogue is sharp and pointed and even witty, provoking laughter in the audience, as relief from the surrounding conversational banality. However part way through the scene fades and we do not learn the denouement until later when she describes it in a conversation with a client.

This is one example of how scenes crucial to the action are discussed rather than depicted. This may have some value in a documentary but it weakens a drama which should have both conflict and resolution and this has neither and instead is a few days in the life of a New York escort girl except Ms Grey isn't an escort girl in reality but portraying one in fiction.

Lastly, we come to Ms Grey herself, who I think will be the major selling point of this film particularly for those who have come across at least some of her other 180-odd films she has appeared in since the age of 18 which will never receive a cinema release. Soderbergh himself makes an ironic reference to this in the final scene where a mountainous Jewish jewellry store owner achieves release by merely being embraced by Ms Grey, clad only in bra and pants, just as many others have achieved release by being electronically embraced by Ms Grey through watching her films.

Ms Grey is the most intriguing figure to come out of the adult film industry and attempt a mainstream crossover since Traci Lords in the mid-1980s. Her svelte, dark-haired willowy appearance stands in sharp contrast to the blowsy, blonde, silicon-assisted features of previous adult film stars who have entered the wider public consciousness in more recent times such as Jenna Jameson.

Could Ms Grey achieve what Dorothy Stratten was on the brink of doing before tragedy intervened and become widely accepted as a mainstream actress? On this evidence she has a long way to go yet but this reviewer will continue to follow her career with interest.

what was the point?

[dragokin · 3/10 · 12 January 2014]

Steven Soderbergh's docudramas are polarizing, although i have nothing against them. However, in The Girlfriend Experience it is unclear whether there is a message, criticism or was it just another artistic experiment.

Sasha Grey is surprisingly good, if you bear in mind her previous experience in front of the camera, but the scenario was to weak, in my opinion. We follow Sasha Grey's character as she earns her daily bread as a high-class prostitute.

It is a shady world she lives in, yet everything was filmed in such a matter-of-fact manner that i felt neither revulsion nor pity. It was unclear why should a girl such as the main protagonist choose such vocation, which, according to this film, feels like just another line of work.

Again, The Girlfriend Experience is almost a documentary, which eventually left me wondering why i'm watching it, at all...

How to make a sophisticated movie with no money

[daniel_poeira · 8/10 · 10 May 2009]

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.

Style Over Substance

[patricknic · 7/10 · 28 May 2009]

This film is the stylish portrait of a high-end New York City escort. While the film lacks any true emotional depth, its ironic value lies as a piece of art lies therein.

Soderbergh has crafted an aesthetically pleasing picture that is perfectly enjoyable throughout, but as the escort it portrays, lacks any real emotional connection with the viewer and any lasting impact.

Grey's acting, however unintentionally on her part, leaves the viewer in a similar position to one of her character's clients; it is almost as if she pretends to be Chelsea rather than actually becoming her, in the same manner that she pretends to be a client's girlfriend.

The closer to reality, the bigger the distortion

[hasosch · 1/10 · 21 November 2009]

When Rosa Von Praunheim wanted to make a film about Fassbinder's "widows", he just took a camera and went from apartment to apartment, from restaurant to restaurant and filmed what came in front of his camera. The end-product he called a "near-reality" movie. When German journalist Günther Wallraff wanted to document discrimination and racism in German plants, he masked himself as a Turk and worked with hidden cameras. The US-university professor Barbara Ehrenreich did the same some years ago when she wanted to collect material for a study about the working-poor in America.

I wonder why Soderbergh did not the same and just followed a real call-girl through a representative couple of days, thereby illustrating the different aspects of her work. Pseudo-documentaries are almost worthless because the border between fiction and reality is too close, and still in this closeness there is the biggest lie which every audience senses deeply. Instead of that he spent 2 millions of dollars which he filmed through in only a couple of days. Did he pay the 2'000 dollars which Sasha Gray probably gets in reality? It would be a fruitful experiment to calculate the minutes together during which she is shown in the 77 minutes movie.

Unfortunately, the movie is neither a stylized product of genre-crossing nor can it be taken for experimental work - it is mostly comparable with that TV series that the late Ede Zimmermann invented in the Germany of the late 50ies - where actual criminal deeds were played by actors and broadcast on TV in the hope that someone would be a witness of the real crime. Here, the imitation fulfilled practical purposes, but in "The Girlfriend Experience? - What is it then, that Soderbergh wanted to show? That even "love" and not only sex can be bought? - But oh no, he is already a while on this world, isn't he?

Uninspired is no word

[keenast · 1/10 · 30 May 2009]

What a disappointment. The film comes over as having had no script to begin with. Everybody's chit-chatting along, the camera (manned by the man himself - and one hears he tried to channel Antonioni - what's he smoking) is so utterly boring, the frames so stilted, action so terribly stagy - what actually is this movie. Not to mention the 'infamous' RED camera: the movie looked like it was shot with some miniDV camera with all highlights totally blown and no depth to the images. Mixed lighting is a mixed blessing, no matter what camera - somebody please forward that to the 'cinematographer'. And then there's 'sound': I can see that there's not even a name assigned in the IMDb credit's list. No wonder - I wouldn't put my name there. It seems for Soderbergh it's enough to slap some wires onto the actors (but really really deep under some layers of clothe to make it really sound mumbly-jumbly) and voila, we've replaced the sound department. Only question left is, who is coming up with money for productions like that. Really really bad and completely uninspired 'product'.

Interesting but doesn't come together in a way that works as well as you would hope

[bob the moo · 19 October 2009]

The Girlfriend Experience got headlines due to its casting, sparking discussions over the nature of porn in the mainstream without anyone ever pausing to realise that this film does not represent porn in the mainstream, but rather someone who does porn also doing "proper" acting. I say this because this is not a film about sex or pornography or prostitution but rather one about commodities, trading, money and the nature of relationships where these things are involved. What this translates into in reality is a film that has lots of discussions that provide material on relationships that are some variant on personal, sexual, financial or a mix of all three. In terms of actual plot it must be stated that there is not really a start, middle, end in a traditional narrative sense but rather more of a flow of discussion and characters.

To a point this engages reasonably well because the whole time I was watching it I was working to try and relate what was being said about the business world with what was being shown in regards the escort service. Here and there I made sense of it but too often it seemed to be deliberately hard to grasp or indeed perhaps just not hold together as well as it should have done. Although it is a very short film this work did start to tire me and I'll be honest and say that it didn't really work for me. The film was so clearly "saying" something (as opposed to "doing" something) that it became frustrating to me that it didn't say it clearer and with more conviction. OK so it still mostly held my attention and I understood the obvious narrative parallels between the lives of the various characters in how the "became" something for others in return for money but this is not the same as it working and being as intelligent as it thinks it is – it isn't.

Soderbergh directs with a dimly lit but yet attractive view of things, giving the film a real good feel that would have done well to enforce the material if it had been stronger. The key PR move was of course the casting of Sasha Grey and she does do a really good turn here – although why everyone is shocked about this I'm not sure. There is a school of thought that pornography involves no acting skills at all, usually people think this until they see porn with a woman who cannot act to save her life – it is awful stuff and Grey's adult roles show she can perform there as well as she does here. She has a naturalism and sadness to her character that works well and does both convince and engage. Santos works well with her as he does the same sort of role but in a different trade, while the various clients are all solid turns that don't detract.

The Girlfriend Experience is not that great a film unfortunately. It has much of interest in the visuals, specific dialogue scenes, the parallels in the characters and the casting/performances but it just never comes together in the way one would hope. It is worth seeing because of the nature of it but even with an open mind it is likely that it will not take over you the way that you would want it to.

Love for sale in DV

[Chris Knipp · 6/10 · 31 May 2009]

'The Girlfriend Experience,' another one of Steven Soderbergh's forays into low-budget DV film-making, is a cold and soulless movie about a cold and soulless young woman. Chelsea, played by porn star Sasha Gray, looks quite a lot like Tiny, the girl in Mary Ellen Mark's famous 1983 photo portrait: the same impeccable clothes and sad little turned down mouth. The only suspense is watching to see if she'll give away an emotion. Even a small one.

From first to last 'Girlfriend' gleams with darkly elegant digital images of good Manhattan restaurants, chic hotels, and other places where big money is to be spent with cold returns: an upstate resort, a chartered plane, Vegas. Chelsea (Gray), a fancy Manhattan hooker, lives with a surprisingly possessive gym bunny called Chris (Chris Santos).

Both Chris and Chelsea seek betterment. Chelsea meets with website designers, a journalist, a business adviser, an older colleague, always looking for ways to "move to the next level." Chris does some side research into the gym business and presses his boss at the club where he's a personal trainer to give him more of a management position. The trouble is this is late 2008, just before the election, when everybody's scared of losing his shirt. Call girls and physical trainers are just the kind of luxuries people are cutting back on. Don't expect to see sex in this movie, still less love, though like every girl Chelsea is looking for a meaningful relationship, even if she is looking in all the wrong places. When a married john makes her laugh, she's ready to run off for a weekend with him (against Chris's strict rules) and maybe drop Chris altogether.

Soderbergh has sliced and diced and rearranged sequences out of chronological order, which somehow adds to both the glamor and the lack of affect of the proceedings. Moments in Chris and Chelsea's modern bar-kitchen-living room alternate with blurry shots of Chris's trip to Vegas as an escort (he too), meetings and goodbyes of Chelsea with johns, conversations in good restaurants, two of which, Blue Hill, and Nobu, get named, as do various upscale clothing designers. For a while we get voice-overs of Chelsea's diary, recording tricks, what she wore, and how she was received. For repeaters, she remembers to ask about family.

Chelsea catches hell from Chris for planning that weekend, but when she goes to the resort, the john has gotten guilty about his wife and kids and bailed out. Poshness alternates with sleazy pathos. The most pleasurable moments come in contemplating the effect of amber filters on plate glass and watching big solid forks waved over elegant chinaware.

There are vivid moments, but no crescendos. Online film reviewer Glenn Kenny is momentarily disgusting as a "critic" of call girls who pitches a group gig in Dubai and cadges a freebie. Chris Santos' evident discomfort with every line he speaks makes your flesh creep, but so does most of the movie. An Orthodox diamond merchant who collapses into sighs and tears in a hug provides yet another kind of embarrassment. The suspense over whether Chelsea will crack evaporates eventually. She just doesn't. This does not mean she's uninteresting to watch. She makes your flesh creep too, and her emotional absence is a kind of presence. Subconsciously one feels a puzzlement: how can anyone be so uptight and still breathe?

Soderbergh's technically and financially similar 2005 film 'Bubble' was about naive low income people and a murder. With its quaint doll factory milieu and drab everyday people set off by a serious crime, 'Bubble' had a sense of guilelessness and authenticity that's quite the reverse of Chelsea's world. A vérité style of film-making has a considerably weaker effect when everyone is guarded and supercilious.

my notes

[FeastMode · 1/10 · 24 July 2019]

Completely pointless and useless. garbo-trash. horrendous. why wouldn't they use an actress???? why was the acting in this movie less than straight-to-dvd level quality. worse than network drama acting. why did you need a porn star? especially since most actresses would have done everything required for this role, while also bringing talent. it was a little nudity. i don't think there was even a sex scene. so why in the hell would they not cast the hundreds of actresses that would have loved to start in a soderbergh movie. my theory is soderbergh was obsessed with sasha grey and wanted to do her. and her boyfriend was horrendous. even when he wasn't saying anything he was bad. also, critics are worst (1 viewing)

Unconventional but works

[grantss · 7/10 · 21 September 2018]

Not at all a conventional movie - plot is a few days in the life of a prostitute; direction is minimalist and understated, giving the feel of a candid movie; the lead character is played by a pornstar. Yet it works, mostly.

It makes for a very interesting and sensitive drama. It does feel flat though, like it just needed something to ignite it.

Most pleasantly surprising aspect of the movie is the acting of Sasha Grey. I guess it is easy to underestimate her acting abilities, as she comes from the world of porn movies, but her performance is superb.

The casting must have raised a few eyebrows at the time, but Steven Soderbergh doesn't just make anyone the lead in his movies, so must have spotted something in her. Let's hope she gets many more mainstream (i.e. non-porn) roles.

Another Pretentious Crap of Steven Soderbergh

[claudio_carvalho · 1/10 · 4 November 2009]

I was curious to see "The Girlfriend Experience", mostly because of the marketing related to the name of the porn star Sasha Grey in the lead role. This "actress" could be a good choice to perform the expensive escort girl Chelsea, who works in Manhattan offering her services to upper-class clients, most of them worried about the present American economical crisis. Unfortunately this movie about sex without sex is dull and pointless, with a boring and lame screenplay and terrible acting. At least, Steven Soderbergh does not waste talented actors and actresses in this movie, like he did in "Full Frontal", and that is the only merit of this decadent director in this pretentious flick. My vote is one.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Simulacrum of a documentary

[skepticskeptical · 6/10 · 11 March 2020]

I was curious about The Girlfriend Experience, which I discovered while browsing through my library´s online collection. Since it was so short, I figured that I had nothing to lose. It reminds me of the fly-on-a-wall documentaries produced by many well-regarded filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s. Director Soderbergh also has a reputation for intelligent and well-made films, and this one offers a what appears to be a realistic look at the life of a high-end escort. There is no discernible major plot, but that is the nature of fly-on-the-wall documentaries, which do seem to have informed this production. The construction of this work should be of interest to film buffs, as there are several subplots (complete with turning points and dénouements), but there is no governing ¨story¨. It´s more like a concatenation of short stories.

What is life as a hooker to well-off New Yorkers really like? I don´t know whether this is completely fictional or not but it felt pretty authentic. The naysayers seem to be fans of Sasha Grey´s porn oeuvre, who were probably hoping to see some serious action here, which is not provided. Other critics seemed to be hoping for a moral critique of prostitution and the dangers inherent to the profession. Not being a porn watcher, I had never heard of Sasha Grey until this film. I note that she has a sort of Ellen Barkin asymmetrical smile. No idea why she took the porn road at the age of eighteen.

Overall, The Girlfriend Experience is not bad, but if you are looking for a movie with a discernible and overarching plot, The Girlfriend Experience probably will not satisfy.

Save your dollars

[rgcustomer · 5/10 · 27 August 2009]

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.

Sex is everywhere in The Girlfriend Experience, except there's no sex.

[la_fleur · 9/10 · 21 May 2009]

First of all, Sasha Grey, queen star of more than 80 porn films, is ironically the only professional actor in the movie, playing a character who is always acting. Grey was contacted through MySpace, but she really pulled her part off, considering she works in adult films, she plays the part really well, her performance is understated and realistic.

Because the movie is set during the financial crisis of October 2008, this film is also about people obsessed with money, the true nature of the crisis, from Sasha to her clients.

Her clients talk about the economy more than just having sex with her. Worried about losing their money, those highly blamed executives that people anger in public life are human and vulnerable in their private life, asking for counselling with an escort girl.

When she's alone in the midst of a relationship crisis just as bad as the economical situation, we see that the economy really doesn't phase her. She's recession proof, paid in cold hard cash and no matter how bad things are, guys have needs. Soderbergh jumps around in the story but ties it all together neatly.

The film looks great too, the cinematography is really modern, realistic and with intimate camera movements. However I felt the script was a bit fluffy in places, many of it was improvisation.

It will certainly be an eye opener for those who are unaware of the daily business of an escort. Would have liked to have seen more in-depth analysis of the character’s history/background. Who is she? Where did she come from? What was her upbringing like? The movie ignores these details which are usually important for a character study.

8.5 out of 10

A look at the life of a high class call girl. That's blended with life experiences, and emotions that are tied to the corporate world.

[blanbrn · 6/10 · 20 October 2009]

Steven Soderbergh's art house indie "The Girlfriend Experience" is nothing great nor is it really sexy. Instead it's an off beat look at the life and experiences of a high class New York city call girl told thru the first person point of view as escort Chelsea tells of her experiences and how the sessions and dealing with the customers play with her emotions. Also interesting and somewhat strange is how Soderbergh blends the film in with the corporate world, as you will see many segments of CEO's and high class rich business men talking about how the recession is affecting business. This is really just a subplot yet it ties in well with the central character as many of Chelsea's customers are rich corporate types. So clearly this is not just a film of kinky sex.

Set in New York city in Manhattan it follows the life of Chelsea(played by adult film star Sasha Grey)and I must say she's top notch as a $2,000 an hour call girl. The film told mostly thru a flashback style and first person point of view Chelsea tells of her experiences with men mostly rich and well off and not all of her encounters are sexual. Many times her meetings often lead to companionship and conversations as many of her business men clients are feeling the heat of the recession and losing money and they need someone to talk to. This is a subplot that ties in with the film that leads to the biggest message and point of the film that is Chelsea is providing them with the complete girlfriend experience.

However that's not to say that the film doesn't have conflict and uncertainty as in this business when meeting people Chelsea's experience can be easily manipulated. As she mentions in the film that many times it's like playing another identity totally. I think of the old saying we all wear masks. Also it shows how Chelsea at the same time juggles the life of sex work and manipulator while trying to have a loving relationship with a boyfriend who's a gym instructor. Proving that a real relationship with a woman like this is not possible showing that it's meant for Chelsea to wear a mask and be what she is best that's to provide experiences of being a girlfriend to lost lonely uncertain souls of men who are complex.

Overall this film is worth a check out as Soderbergh's approach is not bump and grind with sex lust, yet he chooses more of a first person style to showcase what life is like for a high priced escort using the subplot of big business and the corporate world to make the film play out as interesting proving that even though affecting and emotional life is business and that many wear a mask for each experience so that they can please.

A slice of an escort's life is in fact very, very, boring.

[thismovieissobad · 3/10 · 10 May 2009]

First of all, the editing was just AWFUL; the cinematography was almost as awful.

Without going into much detail, there are about 10 or so actual "scenes" in the movie, and it keeps cutting between all of them in a random fashion. Often times the movie would introduce a character, and then cut to a scene completely unrelated to the character who was just being discussed.

The camera work was shoddy at best. At points the film almost seemed like a documentary with the way that the camera would focus only on one person during a two-way conversation, leading the viewer to believe that the scene was an in-movie interview.

The film is labeled "comedy", but there was almost 0 comedy in the movie. The acting was decent, but Sasha Grey just seemed like some slab of meat that really has no emotions whatsoever. For some odd reason, she is considered "one of the best" in the business. I guess when you're super rich, women who can't make meaningful responses make ideal partners.

The music was also terrible. Often times it was completely inappropriate for the scene (Think the Team America "**** yeah!" song playing during the Lion King when Simba's dad dies).

The only redeeming feature about the movie is that Sasha Grey undresses several times.