But The Girlfriend Experience moves quickly, and Christine soon morphs into someone who not only makes sex her living, but is painfully blasé about it. This has the effect of making the show's atmosphere look almost supernatural, filtered by murky orange and blue lights. She stares blankly at the screen the entire time showing no emotion in a role that does not give her much to do. This whole movie is Chelsea's and the brunt of the film falls squarely on Sasha Grey's fingers. Moody hotel room lighting and late nights at the office. She wasn't half bad, and because of that, it's the same with the movie as a whole; it wasn't half bad.
The Girlfriend Experience is definitely not a portrayal of most realities, and probably not a portrayal of any single person's reality either, escort or otherwise. He made another appointment for November 3rd. He filmed it on a small budget in a matter of two weeks with a cast that has never acted before(except Sasha Grey, but her normal films include deep throating or anal). Then he masturbated while watching me. The problem lies within its overall delivery which is lifeless. The Girlfriend Experience's performances just aren't good enough to create it. It is clear the message is how pathetic these men are for being only concerned about money and looks. Even while trying to claim that sex is no big deal, The Girlfriend Experience is often hand-wringing and squeamish, treating physical intimacy like an act of body horror. Nevertheless, she has decided to make the transition to film that leave many people scratching their heads for the reasons. He hints at it, but doesn't just come out and say it. The new Starz series is loosely inspired by Steven Soderbergh's 2009 film of the same name, which chronicled the work of a high-end escort (played by then-adult-actress Sasha Grey) trying to make money in New York City after the 2008 financial collapse. Sasha Grey is recognized throughout the world for being a pornstar. When we meet Christine, she's a law student with an internship at a glossy patent law firm, and she's semi-scandalized by the idea of being an escort.
Like Soderbergh's original movie (he stays on as an executive producer here), The Girlfriend Experience is obsessed with specific spaces, and the feelings associated with those spaces. Maybe then, more emotions and struggles could have been brought to the table for the actor to share. While director Steven Soderbergh does a brilliant job picking a perspective on a subject like this and having a "fly on the wall" presence throughout, the film's inability to enamor or push beyond its initial thoughts on the economy prove to be very disappointing. She gasps at another point, as if this wouldn't be any logical person's first assumption. It's more just a character driven movie that has some statements to say about the Obama/McCain race and the crumbling economy. Over the course of the series, Christine sleeps with several men, many of whom feel indistinguishable from one another (aging, strong-jawed business-types with very clean suits and even cleaner apartments).
Not as good as Bubble, but still pretty good. Jul 08, 2011The beauty of the movie lies in the way the scenes appear as being stolen stills from reality. The Girlfriend Experience is a show about having explicit but perfected sex in beautiful hotel rooms. That's the elevator pitch for The Girlfriend Experience — one woman's experience of exchanging sex for money — but it's really just a starting point for the show's attempts to explore under-the-table transactions as a general space: the hidden exchanges of the economy, business, family, and sex. "You meet men online? " The Girlfriend Experience is aesthetically beautiful, and almost consistently stunning to look at. It is in the style of a movie like Bubble more then a movie like Ocean's 11. Keough's portrayal of Christine is calculated, cold, and pristine, like a revamped Patrick Bateman. The Girlfriend Experience premieres on Starz on April 10th and all 13 episodes will be available on Starz On Demand and Starz Play. With the doe-eyed innocence of Anastasia Steele. A good concept with some important themes, The Girlfriend Experience still falls flat. The Girlfriend Experience is obsessed with money, status, cheating, and getting caught. In the end, I always have fun seeing a Soderbergh film for the first time and The Girlfriend Experience was no different. Characters who once seemed significant fade into the background.
Even moments of intense fear and paranoia are trumped by this blank look, as if Christine is terrified to feel anything other than a deadening emptiness. It's long enough to detach viewers from what's really happening: just a shiny metal tool slowly working against flesh. The Girlfriend Experience is, at times, irritating, captivating, uncomfortable, beautiful, heavy-handed, frightening, confusing, and a little bit dumb. It wasn't a masterpiece by any stretch, but it was a decent little experiment.