Review of The Girlfriend Experience

I finally got around to seeing Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience a few days ago.  Let me preface my review with the statement that I am a huge Sasha Grey fan.  I absolutely love watching her fuck in her porn movies. She brings an unbridled, unabashed enthusiasm to the screen when she’s having sex that you just don’t see in many porn actresses these days.  And she’s intelligent and well-spoken to boot.  What’s not to love?

I’ve read other peoples’ reviews of the movie (mostly those of other sex workers) and wasn’t expecting much from TGFE to begin with.  I’m happy to report I wasn’t disappointed.  And, like many others, I’m trying to decide if Sasha’s acting was flat or if the writing and screenplay sucked.  Perhaps it was a bit of both. Admittedly, I went into the movie expecting to see a movie about her life as a call girl.  I mean, that’s how it’s promoted:  A revealing look at the world of prostitution from an elite call girl’s point of view.

That is so not what this movie is about.

If you’ve watched Sasha in interviews, you know she’s naturally very quiet and laid back, almost melancholic, in fact.  And that’s the way she plays her character in the movie.  If I had been writing the screenplay, I’d have taken that into account as I developed the scenes so that it might take advantage of this quality rather than have that and the writing combine for a movie that appears to be trying to make a point, but fails for the most part.

As you watch the movie, you’re taken through a series of disconnected snippets of life of the handful of characters that comprise the movie.  I’m not a big fan of the jumping from one scene to another continuously in any movie.  It makes for a disjointed viewing experience and makes it hard to follow the story line. Being familiar with Soderbergh’s other works, I suspect this was intentional for this movie, though.  But though some critics have lauded the “style” he used, I just found it painful to force myself to try to connect everything together continuously.

I found myself several times begging for the story line to get on with it – there was just too much bore in the whole thing.  There are a lot of parallel story lines being developed, but they’re all just too disjointed (Have I mentioned that the movie was disjointed yet?).  They’re intended, I suppose, to provide some character development for other folks in the movie and to draw parallels between what they do and what Chelsea does.  But, damn, at least provide some connectivity amongst them all rather than multiple independent story lines broken into pieces and pasted in a(n apparent) random sequence to make a “movie.”  You’re just never allowed to understand the inteconnectedness of everyone in the film, and I think that is the single biggest negative about TGFE.  I think he could’ve made his point in a 10-minute flick as opposed to the 77 minutes this thing actually runs.

As for Grey’s portrayal of Chelsea as the girlfriend for rent, I think it was reasonably accurate with respect to her personal reflections on what she does.  One thing I liked about her is that she explored her clients a bit – tried to get them to give her some information about themselves to allow her a basis for forming a connection.  I do that with my clients as well, and I think that goes a long way toward making the appointment about the client, or the pair of us, rather than the sex.  It helps you to fulfill that “girlfriend” role a bit more if you have some knowledge about your client.  I was also appreciative of the fact that at no time was she presented as the “victim” stereotype that you so often see hookers portrayed in most films.

The one thing that struck me negatively about her, however, was her affect.  And, again, I’m not sure if this was a function of Sasha’s own personal affect coming across or if it was the writing.  I’d be inclined to say the writing was at fault, but as I understand it, much of the dialogue was improvised on the fly, so who knows?

If I was as detached with my clients as she was with hers, I doubt I’d get many repeat appointments. And I have yet to have a client who ignores me in favor of a long drawn out telephone conversation.  They’ve paid a good sum of money for me to be there, and they’ve always wanted their money’s worth.  Maybe it’s different in Manhattan?  Maybe it’s different if you’re charging $2,000 an hour?  I don’t know.  I doubt it, though.    One review I read about the film shortly after it debuted said something to the effect of “...it makes hiring an escort look extremely boring.”  Indeed.

The role, as written, just never struck me as the true representation of what a “high class” escort in Manhattan was like.  I honestly believe the writers of this story had no clue what escort/client interactions are really like (and quite honestly, probably didn’t really care, based on the overall timbre of the film itself), and Sasha, not having been an escort before, didn’t know to “correct” them.  This would suggest that lack of a “technical adviser” as well.

“Sometimes clients think they want the real you, but at the end of the day they really don’t.  They want what they want you to be.  They want you to be something else.  They don’t want you to be yourself.  If they wanted you to be yourself, they wouldn’t be paying you.”

See, this line, uttered by Chelsea as she’s being interviewed by one of the other characters in the movie, sounds really good.  And to anyone who doesn’t really know what goes on between escorts and their clients, especially at the higher end, this sounds perfectly reasonable.  It fits the stereotype most people on the outside have of the way things work.

The truth of the matter is the exact opposite, however.  In fact, part of the whole girlfriend experience is a “real” connection between the escort and the client – he wants someone who he can talk to and converse with, not just a hole to get off into. That whole “realness” of the escort is part and parcel of the girlfriend experience, and is what separates those who provide a GFE with other escorts.  That specific kind of individual is what clients pay the big bucks for (generally – there are always exceptions, of course).   This is how I can tell that those involved with the writing and screenplay on this movie just used common stereotypes to formulate the characters.

The single best way to ensure repeat clients is to be effusive and gregarious (without overdoing it) and to be good in bed (based on their perception of “good”).  Of course, we didn’t see any of Chelsea’s sexual performances in this movie, so the only thing you can measure her by is the way she interacts with clients on an interpersonal level when she’s not playing with the cock.

Her live-in boyfriend, Chris, is played a bit more strongly, though I question their relationship as it is portrayed in the movie as well.  To me, it didn’t seem as if he was much more to her than one of her clients.  She sure didn’t treat him much differently.  Supposedly, they’ve been together for 18 months, but I know I’d have kicked that relationship to the curb 17 months ago if I’d been engaged the way they were.  It just didn’t seem…legitimate.

I suspect Soderbergh was trying to make a point about the commodification of the person, or perhaps the commodification of interpersonal relationships (given the nature of the scenes involving all of the other actors in the movie) though, rather than about the sex (i.e., we’re all whores).  Still, with a name like The Girlfriend Experience, and the way the movie is/was marketed, one would expect (want?) a movie that explores the totality of “the girlfriend experience” rather than just one aspect of the person who provides that experience intermingled with all of the other flotsam that is splashed across the screen.

Basically, it boils down to this.  If you want a movie that is about the juxtaposition of money and interpersonal relationships, and you don’t mind a disjointed, obtuse photographic style, you might enjoy TGFE.  If you want a movie about “the girlfriend experience,” save your money.  This ain’t even close.

If you do watch it, though, be sure to watch through the credits.  There’s a little surprise for you Sasha fans at the end. 

Maybe I should write a screenplay for a movie called The Porn Star Experience. 

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