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Film reviews

Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The Girlfriend Experience (Film)

by Brian Duff | September 02, 2009 15:28 | Edited September 02, 2009 15:29

The rich client characters nearly ruin it, but the leading lady manages to shoulder the weight of this short but sharp effort from a fascinating filmmaker.

There is no such thing as a typical Steven Soderbergh film, but there are thread-lines. He makes bright, boisterous fun films (think Ocean's Eleven and Out Of Sight), cynical, smart personal meditations (sex, lies and videotape, The Limey), and Oscar grabs (Traffic, Erin Brockovich). He remakes (Solaris, The Good German) and makes mistakes (Ocean's Twelve, Schizopolis) and, as often as not, he shoots beguiling, flawed cinematic experiments that blur the line between fact and fiction. The Girlfriend Experience, like Gray's Anatomy and, gulp, Full Frontal, is one of those.

 

Starring real life porno actress Sasha Grey as a pricey prostitute who engages in the titular industry practice of being wined, dined and conversed with (as well as the other stuff), the film is about big issues (relationships, prejudice, capitalistic modernity), but at 77 minutes, it hardly dwells on any. Instead, Soderbergh rests his film's success on the narrow shoulders of Grey, as Christine (aka, Chelsea), who proves a capable, if tepid, leading actor in her inaugural "mainstream" effort. She suits her director, as there are no layers of contrivance to her performance. Instead, she is metaphorically (and literally) naked on screen, a cipher whose cool outward demeanour either conceals a torrent of conflict or an uncurious intellect. In short, Grey's pretty good, if largely unchallenged.

 

Super lo-fi and shot entirely on Soderbergh's favoured digital device, the famous Red Camera, The Girlfriend Experience is hardly lacking compelling elements, but is largely let down by its setting. It turns out that wealthy Johns in New York are noxious money pits who enjoy spouting vapid soundbites on topical issues - the global financial crisis, terrorism, the US presidential election - ad nauseam. While Ms. Grey's character may be paid to appear interested, however, the audience certainly is not.