The Girlfriend Experience

Chelsea is a NYC escort specializing in high end clients.  She gives them the THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE.  Meaning, emotional intimacy is shared as well as raw intercourse.  Several previous movies have in fact shown that escorts, prostitutes, hookers, and those deemed similar reveal that the job sometimes doesn't even involve sex, but rather just conversation. A shoulder to cry upon.  Therapy for some.  One potential client recognizes this before he even meets Chelsea in person, stating that he'd rather pay her than a shrink, as it would be a lot more fun.

Chelsea is not her real name.  It's Christine, and outside of work she has a real boyfriend.  This 2009 film examines how such a relationship can co-exist with her trade, and Brian Koppelman and David Levien's script seems realistic about it all.  They use the days leading up to the 2008 election, after the Market suffered an historic crash, to observe the difficulties she and her clients face in such an uncertain environment.  There is a lot of anxiety about maintaining lifestyles, which include a regularly scheduled girlfriend experience.

Director Steven Soderbergh again experiments with his chosen medium.  Quite expertly.   This is an entirely non-linear narrative, and for this project, it works quite well.  Repeat viewings are rewarded with greater understanding of relationships, the characters' reactions and states of mind.  While it plays, it sometimes feel like a puzzle.  Chelsea/Christine (former porn actress Sasha Grey) has revealing conversations with her customers, a journalist, and of course her boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos), a gym trainer.  Through them, and her occasional voice overs as she documents her appointments, we learn a bit about her, but maybe not enough for this to be a completely satisfying movie.  I ultimately am not sure if she is vapid or just incredibly guarded, even in the fly on the wall moments.

Expectedly, it looks great.  Soderbergh (under a pseudonym) shot it with his beloved Red camera in digital.  The use of natural and manufactured light (not "movie" light) is sharp and gives the movie an expensive looking style, so appropriate for this, admittedly another Soderbergh "stunt." I was fascinated most of the way, but eventually wondered if what I was watching was inconsequential and empty.  At the same time, I felt THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, just the right length at seventy seven minutes, was as also very insightful and emotionally vivid.  Perhaps a highly effective portrait of loneliness.