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Chelsea (Sasha Grey) is a top prostitute in New York City, one that
doesn't only give her clients the obvious (and that would be sex of
course) but also the feeling she is their girlfriend, and to that end, she
has a file on each client of hers as a way to remember his background and
their previous dates to quite some detail. On top of that, Chelsea is
quite intelligent and cultivated, in order not to give anyone the feeling
she is just a cheap streetwalker. Chelsea also has a boyfriend, Chis
(Chris Santos), who seems to have no problems with her profession. But
playing the lover of any number of men is not without its dangers, dangers
like falling for a client for real for example, which happens when she
meets writer David (David Levien), with whom she emotionally bonds all too
quickly, and when he asks her to spend the weekend with him - a big no-no
regarding her relationship with Chris, who wants her for himself at least
then - she says yes without hesitation, and even breaks up with Chris
because of this. Thing is, once she's at the resort she was to meet him,
David calls to say he can't come because he's got a family back home -
which leaves her in tears, naturally ... Basically, the
notoriety of this film is based on the fact that hardcore pornstar plays
its lead, a prostitute (even though there's very little actual nudity, let
alone sex, in this film), and lovely Ms Grey shows enough self confidence
and charisma to actually carry the film, and even seems to have a natural
acting talent only rarely witnessed in her porn work. Apart from Sasha
Grey though, The Girlfriend Experience is decidedly less than
great, a little film shot in pseudo independent/arthouse style that takes
a very long time to tell very little, that is filled up with scene after
scene of people just talking about nothing in particular, and that
features a story that has already been told much more entertainingly in
the British TV-series Secret
Diary of a Call Girl (a series which admittedly had other
flaws). That all said, The Girlfriend Expecience is still an ok
movie, one just can't shake the feeling that Sasha Grey and the audience
would have deserved a better film.
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