The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Sasha Grey

***

I was more interested in the concept of The Girlfriend Experience than I was in any desire to be entertained or wowed by a movie. In that way, I was satisfied. I think its interesting that with the resume Soderbergh has put together over the last ten years he's not above going backwards in a sense. With this film, he focused more on the art of concept and filmmaking rather than the more routine and expected plot and performance. Why otherwise would he cast porn star Sasha Grey as Chelsea and unknown Chris Santos as her boyfriend Chris.

Soderbergh does enhance the filmmaking experience with his color schemes and creative shots. Everything really does look beautiful which is consistent with the lifestyles we're exposed to throughout. Chelsea is a high-class call girl of sorts. She, for a price and a steep one at that, isn't just hired by jon's for sex but for the whole girlfriend experience... dinner, a movie, some good conversation... then sex. She of course deals with very well-to-do clients who can afford her services. Chris is a personal trainer and while that doesn't seem as profitable and its certainly much more normal that what Chelsea does, he has some rich clients as well, therefore has money. Everyone in this movie has money, but that doesn't prevent any of them from going on endlessly about the state of the countries economy. I suspect this conversation is had so repeatedly in order to suggest that Chelsea and Chris' clients are all essentially corporate America, that one is really no different than the other aside from their looks and personality... things that are usually of very little interest to either one of them.

I respect what Soderbergh is doing with this film but I can't say that he succeeded 100%. The performance of Sasha Grey, or lack there of, did hurt what he was trying to do. Not that a good performance was really necessary, but a performance did need to exist. She is so dead pan (and not the good, funny kind) and emotionless in every scene that it almost makes it difficult to figure out what she's doing. In other words, when she's with her boyfriend (an escort's boyfriend must have something that makes her happy) she's straight faced and quiet. When she's with clients, its the same routine. She offers so little that it seems she's made no effort. After seeing her try to cry however, I'm kind of glad she didn't exert too much the rest of the time.

What did succeed was that Soderbergh effectively commented on the economy and how its effecting people without being preachy. He also threw in the irony of rich people pay thousands of dollars to essentially talk about how bad the economy with someone who really could care less. She says she keeps books, but something tells me Chelsea's not in a high tax bracket.

There is a lot of fluff that is mixed into the rest of the movie. The film jumps around chronologically and I'm not sure why. The only thing I can think of is that there's not enough going on to sustain interest unless we're introduced to something only to find out how it happened later. Its inconsistent with what I respected Soderbergh for attempting. There's not a black and white story here, its a commentary, its an experiment and for the most part its a good one, but to then fill space with unneccessary tricks was really a waste of time.

I'm absolutely certain this movie would have served better as a short. It'd seem strange for the director of Ocean's 11, 12 and 13 to start making shorts, but as I said, I think this film in general was an experiement and what could be considered a backwards step in the career of someone who has no more steps to climb. I think its great that Soderbergh made this movie. I don't think it did everything it was supposed to but I expected a conceptual and that's what I got. Not to mention its probably Sasha Grey's best movie.