The Girlfriend Experience

Soderbergh satisfies because he is fearless in a way that Herzog could never be. Herzog goes toward danger in order to capture experiences, but he relies on cinematic methods and narratives models that are safe. Indeed, he never innovates or experiments here. As a result, we get lush operas about violent nature.

Soderbergh on the other hand seems ready to risk his soul, to destroy his career, to make an audience very unhappy if it allows him to surround his art. You never know; you never do. This is structurally less risky than the film he make with and about his wife, 'Schizopolis.' But it is about much the same experience.

The risk is only partially in building the character of a hooker around a genuine porn star. It is more in the assumption that close observation of the near-real will snap us into the ultrareal. Who else does this? Who else among successful filmmakers would put themselves on the line like this. Jarman perhaps, if he had been more widely seen.

And that is what happens. Because the insights here come not from what is written or what the actors do, but by what we see. The filmmaker is the character that is revealed because we define ourselves by the world we make. And he makes this, by looking for certain things between men and women. The killer risk is that he won't find it, or worse, if he does, he shows us who he really is.

The idea is remarkable. The we see through is actually interesting; he makes Sasha an attractive subject and casts his own foibles onto her boyfriend.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

A brilliant little film, economic in its resources and smart in its complex editing. However, this is not destined to be a box office hit. It is the kind of film that Soderbergh does once in a while in-between pop flicks to avoid getting bored.

Sasha Grey delivers some good acting as an ambiguously shallow and ambitious prostitute who tries to survive the post-Obama post-Crisis world of depressed clients and worried boyfriend. Her relationship with her costumers and other professionals who are part of the escort world is built little by little in several out-of-order scenes. Most people will find the movie's timeline confusing, but all you have to do is pay attention to her wardrobe and everything will be fine.

I must also note the soundtrack, that makes use of very interesting unknown music. I specially liked the street drummer.

The images are beautiful enough to make one think "well, not bad for a movie shot on digital". Besides the old-school narrative (in the sense that it belongs more to the Bergman era than to the "Wolverine III" era) this movie looks and feels like the new kind of cinema that cheap digital shooting offers. And I like the way it feels.

IN A NUTSHELL: For Sasha Grey and Soderbergh fans and people who actually care about cinema language. If you like Soderbergh because of "Ocean's Eleven", stay away.

New York City glamour, extremely real acting and scenarios followed by CNN circa 2008 mumbo-jumbo, annoyingly flashy cinematography, and wanna-be American Psycho depravity-in-materialism preaching. Rarely do it want to shut off a movie every five minutes, and if so, even more rarely do I find something to respect in the next five.

As to Sasha Grey and her acting abilities, I think she's OK at it. Many reviews scathe her for "deadpan", but I think that's what high-class dumb sluts actually are probably like. Pretty much empty. Making the most of what god gave them in a depraved way. To me it seems real. The "hooker's boyfriend" character was great, which is hard to pull off in my mind. I really empathized with this guy in a weird situation.

What's not real are the characters of many, though not all, of the "rich assholes". That's about as eloquent as Soderberg is with these characters, "They're just rich assholes" when "the rest of us are hurting" as we are reminded again, and again, and again.

The script and plot line isn't great, often forced by some contrived circumstance, and really goes nowhere in the end. Maybe 5 is too generous. I guess I was intrigued.

This movie felt like it had potential. It's not often that films try to take a serious look at the world of prostitution. This, however, was a downright mess. It was a terribly contrived attempt at being being hip, indie, and sexy and only managed to land the part that it was independent. The script was AWFUL. The only thing any of these characters ever spent any amount of time discussing with one another was the economic crisis and the presidential elections and that's it, quite literally. If I wanted to listen to more financial rhetoric I would have turned on the news. What about exploring the effects the sex trade has on personal relationships? Or the people involved? Look elsewhere if you're interested in the humanity of these individuals because none is displayed here... And sexy? Please. There is no sensuality to this film and barely even sexuality, which is surprising considering how the entire premise of the film is built around sex. There is no sex and only one or two nude scenes that I can recall, which has become pretty standard for practically any independent film these days.

Sasha Grey is a downright disaster. There's a reason why she does porn - she can't act! This girl maintains the same stone cold, dead-eyed expression and tone throughout the ENTIRE film (save for ONE scene where she laughs with a client). Apparently she only has two expressions, bored and orgasm (referring to her adult films). In this film we only see the first... For that matter, all of the characters are one dimensional, flat, and boring.

I had to quite literally force myself to watch this garbage. Save your time and money and skip over this dud.

And don't get me wrong. I like those movies too: In the mood for love, from WKW. Genius!

But here... nothing does really work. First of all: Sasha Grey - she might be good at moaning and stuff, but as a real actress: she looks bored out of her frickin mind the whole movie! And that was how i felt the whole movie! Once again, not much happens in the movie, what would be fine if you compensated it with character development, or beautiful shots, or even some nice editing not to mention soundtrack. But nothing of that is really there. Im a big fan of fragmented editing but it doesn't work if you have no story to tell! Also the excessive comments about elections and the economics moment in the movie, will just make it look outdated in a few years. hell, i just watched it and felt it a lil outdated.

there's no commercial appeal in this movie, and no art appeal either. there were exactly 8 people in the theater besides me and my GF. And none of them seemed very enthusiastic when the lights were on again.