Review of The Girlfriend Experience (2009) by Michael Y — 28 Mar 2011

This is The Michael's 300th movie review! And for the occasion is a particularly weird, slow, but interesting movie. Staring the instantly famous pornstar, Sasha Grey, and directed by "out of the box" Steven Soderbergh, one's opinions about this movie may be low, but The Girlfriend Experience is a movie that needs real focus to appreciate.

Dabate can arise over whether or not Sasha Grey has a talent for acting, but her role as Chelsea is her ideal role. Chelsea is a VERY expensive call-girl who offers "the girlfriend experience". At $2000 an hour, this business offer is not about sex (though it is acceptable) it offers more. Chelsea offers human connection, intimacy, and empowerment to her male clients to feel appreciated in their lives. But Chelsea's life gets even more complicated because she has a boyfriend. But the real question is, how will she be able to balance out her two lives when her real emotions begin to control her decisions? Made during the 2009 presidential election and the economy crisis, this movie's side conversations paint a picture about the themes of plans for the future and people's personal decisions depending on money. Told not in chronological order, The Girlfriend Experience is a frusteratingly slow story, but it's interesting. This is a character study that, if you really want to challenge yourself discovering, is complex both in it's presentation of human connection and the actor's performances.

Steven Soderbergh can make 2 kinds of movie. Hollywood movies and slow independent movies. The Girlfriend Experience is definitely Soderbergh's slow kind of movies, but with a running time of 77 minutes it ends precisely when this movie begins to be too slow. But out of most of Soderbergh's films, The Girlfriend Experience is more unique. For a movie about human connection, it feels really detached from the characters and their interactions with eachother. But that's what makes this movie good to analyze. It's all about how the characters are portrayed. The different locations are intersting, and the cinematography and the lighting that present this story is very well done and creative. The pacing of the movie might not attract it's audience, but it's slow, detached pacing and story give's a certian sad and haunting look that this movie needed to be more intriguing than it's story alone.

This movie's identification with intimacy is unique, but what sells it is performance of Sasha Grey. Her performance might not be spectacular or appealing, but Soderbergh chose her and thought of her character for a spacific purpose. Ms. Grey's experience in her profession gives her the perfect understanding and look in her role, making her character more mysterious than meets the eye. Though Chelsea doesn't get involved personally in her work, her responses, reactions, and expressions draw out a true character that struggles because she doesn't express her real emotions. And in that sence Sasha Grey's performance is perfect in The Girlfriend Experience. Definitely not a movie that will entertain, but for the movie buff, this is an interesting character study movie that's worth watching.