Review: The Girlfriend Experience

Sucks.

It's a perfect example of what not to do when your subject is sex you better deliver what it promises. In Steven Soderbergh's take it offers neither of the above, so it makes it hard to recommend. The take on the material is all business, no fun.

It doesn't work as anything titillating (casting Sasha Grey in the lead is stunt casting without the stunts) but it does work as an examination of how the client / servant relationship works...in 2008 economic climate terms.

This is good stuff to hang a story on, sex in the digital age is a great topic to explore but sadly that wasn't the case. What we get is a passive protagonist looking bored while her clients bitch and moan about the current economic climate.

It's a movie for people who would rather be reading The Economist than be fucking somebody, and that's troubling. Show me some fucking and I'll show you some interest. We get some insights on the business of economy but that's it.

That is so 2008, man. That framing device of the dudes rambling about nonsense (and the horrid color correction) has nothing to do with the movie.

For a more titillating, cerebral, and gutsy look at the life of an escort, I suggest you watch 1991's Tokyo Decadence.

That movie features a truly courageous performance by the lead, with sex scenes that will get your blood running. That character was tragic, made worse by the degradation and humiliation of her work. It was realistic, and cold yet somewhat sexy.

The Girlfriend Experience is more interested in the inner working of the client / provider relationship and that's ok if you like hearing people complain complain complain about the economy, since the movie just happens as a series of scenes there's no connective tissue to warrant much interest. There is a sort of arc to the proceedings but you'll have to get to the end to see it, I didn't and turned it off at the 40 minute mark.

Sex and economy are a shaky business to pull off cinematically, stories need to be relatable on a human level, or offer some insights with fresh characters we don't know about.

Soderbergh chose the least interesting path for this: Economy. The internet has changed all views of sexuality, and how people promote themselves. The interpersonal connection between sex / technology would have been the angle this story would work from, to me it seems more interesting than hearing a bunch of people whose faces we rarely see talk about the economy. You've got a porn star in the lead, use that to turn the expectations on it's head and integrate her baggage into the plot. Sasha Grey did ok, what her character was supposed to do or didn't do.

I think the premise was ok, and given the right set of hands could have turned out a lively, gutsy, and entertaining movie about the inner workings of an escort. Soderbegh just didn't seem very interested in the story, and it shows in the lack of texture and boring dissatisfaction from the way it's mounted. It looks good, shot with the Red and the acting is ok, neither character makes much of an impression. The audio mixing was also a problem, some of the sound sounded terrible.


Others would like it, but if you've ever f**cked an escort you would know a lot more fun is showing than talking.

Had The Girlfriend Experience focused on the inner workings of the character, and cast someone less passive, it would have been ok.

Anyone seen Tokyo Decadence? pop that in.