Customer Reviews

The Girlfriend Experience

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

If you like Soderbergh's more challenging, smaller scale, experimental work, you'll find a lot to love about The Girlfriend Experience. If you're just showing up for porn star Sasha Grey, save yourself the 10 bucks unless you really want to see the girl act. She actually delivers a natural, credible performance as an escort who isn't nearly as sophisticated as she thinks she is.

Told in a fractured, back and forth manner, the narrative is slight and challenging, but the jumbled chronology galvanizes your focus on what's happening. This isn't just the story of a call girl, it's really about loneliness, disconnectedness and the commodification of everything in the modern world, including love.

Soderbergh is often a detached filmmaker, but this is one of his most emotionally resonant pictures since Solaris. The feeling is subtle, but it's there.

This is also one of the most beautifully photographed films of the year.

The need to love and be loved, to know and be known, suggests director Steven Soderbergh (Bubble), is so deeply and powerfully embedded in human nature that we will do almost anything to get it. We will even pay for it, whether to a therapist, to a personal trainer like Chris, or to a $2,000 an hour "escort" girl like Chelsea who provides sex, of course, but mainly therapy to very wealthy but deeply lonely men. Mainly they talk to Chelsea, about all the things you'd talk about in a "real" relationship. She pretends to offer that and they believe they receive it, and woe to both parties when they drop their guard and transgress business boundaries to reveal themselves to each other as real human beings rather than as partners in a transaction. Since human love is one of the few things you can't buy, Chelsea and her clients seek something they can't get and forfeit their closest approximations in what they already have.

Maybe Amazon should have a spoon rating for the movies in its on-demand service. It seems as though most people who have reviewed this film wanted to be spoonfed a story of some type...or maybe the spicy material wasn't as Kleenex-box worthy as they had hoped.

Whatever the case, don't listen to them if you like movies that let you look into someone else's life. GFE is like a Cassavetes film, without all of the yelling. Oh, and it's brilliant.

The sole intent of a business is to provide a commodity for the consumer. A young escort named Chelsea (Sasha Grey) is herself a commodity for rich men who, for all intents and purposes, want the same basic thing: Companionship. Some want to go to the movies. Many want to wine and dine her at pricey restaurants. Sex can be involved, but according to what we're shown, Chelsea's clients are much more interested in airing their financial grievances and persuading her to vote in specific ways during the 2008 Presidential campaign. They also seem quite fascinated with the idea of discovering the "real" Chelsea, which is probably why they often ask her so many questions about what she does for a living. But is it possible to "know" her? As she says, "If they wanted to know the real me, they wouldn't be paying." For an escort, it's not about reality, but about creating the illusion of reality.

Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" operates on complex but relatable notions of humanity, specifically how money can be such a motivating factor. Neither Chelsea nor her clients delude themselves into believing that theirs is a lasting relationship. Indeed, her cool attitude and monotone voice make it clear that it's all about making a transaction and nothing more. She claims to be an escort in a committed relationship, but judging by the way she regards her boyfriend of a year and a half, Chris (Chris Santos), the idea is open for debate; Chris is a personal trainer, and like Chelsea, he wants to be successful at what he does. Do they love each other? Who knows? They live together, but there's never a moment of passion or even basic friendliness. Even when they argue, there's no conviction in what they say to one another.

There may, in fact, be only one client she's willing to pursue at a more personal level. He's not like the others. He actually listens. He's miles apart from the operator of an escort reviewing website, who was willing to write her a good review in exchange for sex. Chris doesn't exactly fit into this scenario, which is ironic since he's her actual boyfriend while her clients are merely paying to pretend to be her boyfriend. They pay for a Girlfriend Experience while Chris gets it for free. Then again, maybe he doesn't; he's offered the chance to join a group of friends for a guys-only weekend in Las Vegas, and considering his relationship with Chelsea, it's easy to understand why he decides to go.

What this movie does so well is reveal character without making it obvious. It's not so much in the dialogue but in the actions and subtle mannerisms. Chelsea, thin and tall with long dark hair, is both beautiful and irresistibly mysterious. She's dedicated and competitive, and we occasionally watch her take notes about her latest date--what she wore, who the clients were, what they did, what they said, etc. More to the point, she knows how to make herself seem interesting to the opposite sex, and she's darn good at making them feel important. She will listen to them talk, and she will respond when appropriate. She will do these things because providing a Girlfriend Experience is her job.

The challenge for the audience is to discover this while working through the film's experimental style. Scenes are played out of sequence. The structure doesn't have a traditional beginning, middle, and end. The dialogue seems almost entirely adlibbed, which is to say that there are a lot of interruptions and moments of hesitation. It was shot with a RedOne camera, which gives the whole thing the look and feel of a documentary. And yet, once the pieces fall into place, we realize that it's been telling us a deceptively simple story, not one of love or happiness but of basic human nature. We go through life knowing we're good at something, and at a certain point, we must provide our services with the rest of the world for a fee. Sasha Grey is the perfect actress to convey this message, given her background in pornography, another business that makes money by creating illusions.

Movies in general are about creating illusions, just as much as they are about providing them to audiences. "The Girlfriend Experience" understands this, which is why I was able to buy into the illusion. It's an unconventional but highly intriguing slice of life about people, not merely a story about characters. We're being asked to watch, and I don't mean we have to keep our eyes on the screen--we really have to watch everything that's going on, from the way shots are set up to what the shots are supposed to reveal. We have to pay close attention to what everyone is saying, not merely because it's important but also because what they say sounds as natural as actual conversing. We have to invest in Chelsea despite the fact that she presents only what her clients want her present. Like the men in her life, we try to discover the "real" her while knowing all too well that such a thing isn't possible. The pleasure of her company isn't personal. It's strictly business.

I was sucked in by the movie poster. I loved the picture of Grey with the big sunglasses looking down at what I thought would be cell phone (she was actually counting money). It could be in a history book 100 years from now illustrating our addiction to information and fashionably big shades in the early part of this century. That photo is literally worth 1,000 words. I'd read about Sasha Grey in Rolling Stone a few months back and I typically load my rental queue with the DVDs that are hard to find. Because of the short length (75 minutes), this has an MTV reality show feel to it. By the way, I avoid reality shows where the focus is on rich, young Californians and their problems. "Girlfriend" works for me though. We can learn a lot from people from different walks of life even when we don't share the same values.

Cinematically, the cityscape is as beautifully shot as Lost in Translation. Both movies share a lot of solitude. It is not as plotless as other reviews say but it does run out of sequence to pique your interest. Chelsea is mechanical but well played by Grey who seems to have hope for an acting career after porn.

If this spoils the movie for you, consider this a warning. Chelsea's clients seem to want her company for a wide range of reasons. Mostly they want someone to listen to them. Don't we all? I was most interested in the values dynamic between her real boyfriend and her career. Having been there (loving someone who is still playing the field), I was most intrigued by Chelsea's greed leading her to go off the meter with a client, losing both her boyfriend and the client (married) in the process. Off the meter or not, Chelsea went on a spending spree prior to the weekend getaway where the guy calls to apologize for his cold feet and abandons her. Chelsea's boyfriend (a personal trainer in a gym) seems more connected to his client's emotions than Chelsea is to hers. The boyfriend pitches the idea of saving money by buying a bigger block of workouts to a gym client while making references to their relationship lasting. He actually refers to the "future" of the relationship.

Try to get too much, and you'll spill the cart and have nothing. Try to own too little, and you're left alone as Chelsea's boyfriend was after getting increasingly possessive about her extracurriculars. In this year of cheaters getting scalded by scorned women (Steve McNair, Tiger Woods etc.) I was paying close attention. What I got out of it was this: Whether you put all your stock in one person, or many: you'd best always be prepared to be alone.

Looking at my queue list, this will remain one of the more memorable movies but I can't give it 4 stars because it's just too thin on content. In a more typical movie plot, Chelsea would have been faced with real danger and perhaps a third act would have her getting help or closure. Instead we see her have one awkward exchange after another with men who never made time to become socially... suave. Awkward conversations with quirky people seem to be a staple in modern indy films. I like this.

This is kind of an odd film to review, partially because it's such a singular film, which is probably why most (newspaper, film critic) reviews focused soley on it being a commentary on the economic crisis.

The writer/director of the film, Steven Soderbergh is best known for his ultra-successful and stylish works like "Ocean's 11" (the Clooney/Pitt one) or maybe the more mainstream award winner "Traffic." But in between doing these studio pics, Soderbergh does some truly original, sometimes downright experimental films like "Schizopolis" and "The Limey." The latter of his work is best suited to arthouse crowds, and even they will have mixed reactions.

I thought this was a brilliant film--it's exceedingly ambitious, stylistically suave, and thematically dense.

There's not really a plot per se, and the timeline is jumbled, but for the sake of simplifying it, we'll say that it follows a high class call girl played by real-life adult mega-star Sasha Grey over the course of 8 days, just before the Obama/McCain election. Non-linear plots are a dime a dozen these days, and so rarely do I see it done effectively and meaningfully ("Memento" and "Pulp Fiction" being two familiar standouts.) It seems rather haphazard at first, but by the time you're done, it's really quite an ingenious structuring.

Sasha Grey is either good at taking direction, has trouble emoting, or is a good actress--the world may not know until she does something else (besides porn.) Her performance is affectless, but it fits so well with the character (and is even referenced in the film) that I don't know whether to credit Soderbergh, Grey, or both for this suitable performance. (P.S. This is not a "sexy film.")

While the economy is the threaded theme throughout, the film touches on so many different issues, poses so many questions...it's so DENSE, it reminds of a late Godard film, as shot in a clinically Kubrick style.

That said, I would not suggest this film to 99% of the people I know, because most people (so I've heard) found it plotless, pointless, dull, random, disjointed, messy, etc.

But if you're a fan of avante-garde/abstract/utterly original cinema, give this film at least a rent (it's only about 78 minutes long) or check out some of Soderbergh's more adventurous work. To the right viewer, the girlfriend experience is well worth the "asking price."

***Note: The alternate version, in the bonus section, on the blu-ray (don't know if it is on DVD) is an even better cut than the amazing original, at two minutes shorter, a few extra scenes and visuals, all in wonderful HD.

Businessmen like paying for things because it gives them a sense of power. According to Soderbergh, its not the paying clients who get confused about the nature of professional relationships (including those involving various forms of payed intimacy), its the call girl who gets confused.

In Solaris, everyone is confused about the nature of their intimate relationships, and everyone lives in their own solipsistic fantasy worlds where others are just projections from their own subconscious. In this film, all the men seem to understand the illusory nature of relationships and accept that; its the call girl who is, ironically, the only one who holds out hope for a genuine human connection.

The male characters like paying for what they want, and the most interesting male client, the journalist, is paying not for the call girl's body but for her story, her truth. The problem is that she doesn't have any "story" or "truth." She is so used to becoming what other men want her to be, that she no longer knows the difference between authentic and manufactured experiences/intimacies. She's become the perfect actress, a kind of blank slate upon which any man can write anything at all. Its a tragedy if there can be anything like tragedy in this postmodern world.

Soderbergh is exploring Godardian terrain here but not really extending our understanding of that terrain as Godard was already postmodern. At least with Godard, the solipsistic characters at least had the ability to grasp the tragic nature of their inauthentic (because always scripted by others) existence. In Soderbergh the characters are not afforded such privileged glimpses of self.

Steven Soderbergh is an experimental director who's not afraid to take chances. He's directed mainstream movies and then he's dappled in the more obscure, independent cinema. The Girlfriend Experience is a film that falls into the latter category that is (oddly enough) written by David Levien and Brian Koppelman who together penned the script for another Soderbergh film...Ocean's Thirteen. Strange, right? Most of Soderbergh's independent efforts fly under the radar, but this one got a little more attention than usual because of his decision to cast the young, controversial adult-film star Sasha Grey in the lead role.

Grey plays a high-class escort who gives her clients "the girlfriend experience," which is the one thing separating her from a hooker. Sometimes, with her clients, sex will not even be involved and instead she will simply go to dinner with them and listen to them talk...And get paid quite a bit for it. Later, she'll recount exactly what occurred with the client. Nothing about the plot of this film is linear and Grey isn't the only character in the film, but identifying the role others play in the overall scheme of the movie is nearly impossible.

The film basically begins with characters having endless conversations about how bad the economy is and when these conversations do eventually cease, people talk to Grey about her job and what it requires of her. Like the talk about the economy, this is equally uninteresting and uninformative. A few people have actually applauded this film for it's statement about the economy or it's study of Grey's character, but make no mistake about it...This is not a character study nor an inside look into the world of high-paid escorts. It comes off like the script was written by two people who had heard of escorts but didn't know much about them and tried to strain the limit of their knowledge about the subject.
I really didn't get the feeling that this was a social commentary either, no matter how much it tried to seem to be. Any social statement Soderbergh and/or the writers were trying to make is lost anyway and the film seems dated mere months after its release.

Now, people have complained about Sasha Grey's performance. I can neither praise nor criticize her performance as this role does not require much talent or acting ability. She is not given a character with emotional depth and, as such, is not required to convey much emotion. Truthfully, more of her emotions are probably on display in her other "films." She says her dialogue convincingly and that's really all her character is given is (meaningless) dialogue. In that sense, she's not bad...Soderbergh clearly saw something in her because it's clear she wasn't cast because of her previous "performances." While Grey does have some brief nudity in the 79-minute film and a very brief nude scene after the credits, you can see more of Grey by typing in her name on google without the safe search on.

I honestly expected to like The Girlfriend Experience. I read all the poor reviews of it and heard how "boring" it is and I typically find something admirable about it. Just because a film is boring doesn't mean it's NOT a good film...The Girlfriend Experience isn't incredibly boring, but it's NOT a good film. This film evoked no emotional response from me and is so bland and dull; it doesn't even inspire enough energy to express hatred for it. I mean, it's a film with hollow, empty characters and strange, inexplicably amateurish cinematography. It doesn't succeed as a parable of today's economic crisis and it certainly doesn't succeed as entertainment. It's a film so absent of admirable qualities, it's a wonder that Soderbergh didn't have his name removed from the credits.

I won't flat-out say "I hate this movie" for one reason...The Girlfriend Experience is one of those rare movies that fails on so many levels, you won't even express any severe distaste for it simply because you'll have completely forgotten you've watched it a few hours later.

These reviews are unfairly critical. This is an excellent well crafted film. Low key, but very well put together. Great to look at, fascinating characters.
I know alot of the types of people shown in this film from escorts to wealthy businessman and this movie nails their lifestyle. Sasha Grey was actually pretty terrific. She perfectly captures the sad vapid type of character she is portraying. And she's great to look and a very believable as someone who would take this path.

It was not what I expected.You get to see Sasha naked a few times and she is easy on the eyes but overall bad story line.She could cross over to mainstream films and be a bigger hit by keeping her clothes on since we know what she looks like without them.