The Girlfriend Experience

Name: The Girlfriend Experience
Genre: Drama
Released: 2009-07-08
Duration: 1 h 17 min
Rating: 5.5
Cast: Sasha Grey, Chris Santos, Philip Eytan

2009
R
1h 17m

IMDb RATING

5.5/10

17K

YOUR RATING

Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

A drama set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, and centered on a high-end Manhattan call girl (Sasha Grey) meeting the challenges of her boyfriend, her clients, and her work.

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Drama

A drama set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, and centered on a high-end Manhattan call girl meeting the challenges of her boyfriend, her clients, and her work.A drama set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, and centered on a high-end Manhattan call girl meeting the challenges of her boyfriend, her clients, and her work.A drama set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, and centered on a high-end Manhattan call girl meeting the challenges of her boyfriend, her clients, and her work.

Director
- Steven Soderbergh
Writers
- David Levien
- Brian Koppelman
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.5/10

17K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Steven Soderbergh
Writers
- David Levien
- Brian Koppelman
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 nominations

Trivia
"Girlfriend experience" is a form of sex work (paid-for female companionship) in which a female prostitute behaves like a male client's girlfriend or shows (artificial) emotional intimacy beyond the sex act.

Quotes
Chelsea: [voice-over] I met with Phillipe on October 5th and 6th. I wore a Michael Kors dress and shoes with La Perla lingerie underneath, and diamond stud earrings. We met at 7:30 PM at the hotel, and had a drink downstairs. He liked my dress but didn't go into detail why, and didn't mention anything else about my appearance. We ate dinner at Blue Hill. Phillipe didn't ask for a menu and had the chef serve us a five-course meal, a different wine with each course. We went to the 9:40 PM showing of 'Man on Wire' at the Sunshine Cinema, and he liked the movie. We went back to the hotel and talked for half an hour. Mostly about a friend of his that keeps borrowing money from him and not paying it back. Then we had sex for about an hour. After that, we talked for about 15 minutes and he fell asleep. At breakfast, he briefly told me his worries regarding the economy, and he said I should invest my money in gold. He also mentioned a book about how the Federal Reserve works. He didn't make another appointment.

Crazy credits
After the end credits, there's a brief scene of Chelsea washing a client's hair as he sits in a bathtub and talks about John McCain.

Connections
Featured in 2010 AVN Awards Show (2010)

Soundtracks
Bad Timing
Written and Produced by David Holmes
Courtesy of Universal Songs of Polygram International Inc.

User reviews112

Review

Featured review

5/10

Save your dollars

This film gets a 5/10 from me because mostly it was in focus and not too hostile to the viewer.

That said, let me start at the end, and say that I was at once relieved that the tedium was over, and annoyed that almost no story had been told, no character really developed. It doesn't even qualify as an abstractly artistic experience.

Soderbergh is by no means my favourite director, but he has been responsible for some at least competent film-making in the past, which is why I went to see this film, in addition to the subject sounding interesting.

But I am just shocked not to be able to find anything good to recommend this film except that it's in focus, and you can identify a main character or two. The sound, cinematography, and editing are otherwise among the worst I've ever experienced. The story just barely exists. In a way, the film is worth seeing just to see how not to make a film.

I could go on about what I wish had been different, but really, what's the point? It's beyond repair.

I will say it's better than Last Days by Gus Van Sant. If you liked that, you'll probably love this.