The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

director: Steven Soderbergh

writers: Brian Koppelman, David Levien

starring: Sasha Grey, Chris Santos

genre: Drama







Not many big name filmmakers try to experiment after the career has hit already a peak. Many like Spielberg for example make great Hollywood films but then take a short pit stop and do that project that can be a little more different and risky like Munich. Here Steven Soderbergh shows that he is still the same art house filmmaker as he started. Here he gives us with a mere budget 1.3 million dollars a fascinating drama with interesting narrative that has deeply influenced European style which make some interested and others deeply bored.



Its weird that the title is the Girlfriend Experience as if this story is about your classical girlfriend which is not. Its about a girl Chelsea (Sasha Grey) and her mundane existence of being a high class prostitute in New York. She tries the best she can to go higher in the business while at the same time maintain a healthy relationship with her boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos). While she has hopes for going up so does her boyfriend Chris. But things don’t go for both of them smoothly either economically or emotionally. And let me just say that the film is only 80 minutes long but it gets its points across and you can see a deep in interesting story.



I love when films take different way of twisting genres or going back to European style of cinema. As Soderbergh gave a different kind of biopic with Che here he gives us a different way of looking at a relationship through the life of a prostitute. Our main character Chelsea knows who she is but is so hollow to her clients and her boyfriend that she leaves us with sense of wondering what going on in her head. Towards the end we slowly delve into her character and how depressing her life is and how she has to play mother, lover, friend, psychiatrist to these men in need who she has to service them.



The whole film Soderbergh uses various methods and experiments with the way he tells the story. The inter-cutting of scenes and revisiting them later makes though specific scenes even more meaningful and with greater dramatic effect. Also his choice to go with a very inexpensive and digital camera that gives the film a realistic approach then your classic placed shots.



There has been some talk about the protagonist Sasha Grey. She is a former porn star. Some might say she plays the part like an amateur. I say she fits the part pretty dam well. Maybe it’s because of the old business environment that she came from that help her. But I loved the way she played it disconnected from all things around her. And a wise choice to play it tone downed down for us to feel more of how degrading, abstract her job is and that even these people have higher hope which most likely don’t accomplish and have to live with best that they got.



Let me just say The Girlfriend Experience is not for everyone. Slow drama’s with deeper meaning is a tough sell for the mass. Anybody that loves old new wave French cinema ala Godard or even Antonioni’s style will enjoy this film and take benefit that someone is still out there trying make these genre films.

Personal Rating:

Review by Paul