The Girlfriend Experience

 

The Girlfriend Experience is a fragmented, detached, yet revealing exploration of contemporary consumerist society. We follow high class escort, Chelsea (Sasha Grey) as she meets with a series of well-heeled Manhattan clients whose conversation seems to be entirely consumed with the current financial crisis. The film captures its characters in a cold and detached manner and almost all of the dialogue – whether it is from Chelsea, her boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos) or the men she meets – is concerned with money. The result is a portrayal of an empty and unattractive society where sex and human connection is as much a commodity as the expensive clothes the subjects wear. Taking a documentary approach to style and a daringly disjointed structure, Soderbergh’s latest offering shows the director at his most experimental in some time. When the credits roll on The Girlfriend Experience there’s a high chance that it will leave you feeling cold, but that seems to be exactly the point. [Gail Tolley]