Considering that Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, The Girlfriend Experience, is about a callgirl, and stars a former pornstar (Sasha Grey), it’s interesting and admirable that the film should be all talk and no sex. Although Sasha Grey is ultimately a brick wall, pretty but vapid, The Girlfriend Experience is still a clever meditation on how people sacrifice their self-respect, to varying degrees, and how they lie to themselves about what they’re doing. Although this is a conversation film, it is not a visually boring film: Peter Andrews’ camera work brings something new and refreshing to each scene to keep the viewer engaged in the discussions.
Chelsea is a young “upscale” and “sophisticated” call-girl in New York City, giving her rich and pathetic clients the “girlfriend experience”. By “sophisticated”, what Chelsea and her clients seem to mean is that unlike your average prostitute, Chelsea dresses respectably, in designer clothing. She’s the kind of girl you can take out to fancy restaurants, to the movies, or even to meet your friends. Chelsea gives men the “girlfriend experience” by having regular clients, with whom she does regular “date”-like activities, in addition to providing sexual services, all in the service of maintaining an illusion of an emotional exchange.
But Chelsea is not a “sophisticated” woman. Though she dresses with sophistication, her limited vocabulary and childish speech – using “like” more frequently than is respectable in educated circles – reveal the truth: she is uncultured and uneducated. But so long as she looks pretty and dresses pretty and plays the part that she thinks her clients want or need, her clients remain satisfied.
Of course, these men aren’t interested in a partner, a relationship or sophistication even if they claim to be. If these men wanted sophistication, they wouldn’t be toying with Chelsea who abides by flaky books on “personology”, akin to astrology, who has no real admirable ambitions, no interesting ideas to share, and nothing to say worth listening to. And they don’t need to listen: Chelsea, the pretty prostitute, attends to their insecurities and asks the questions and Chelsea lets the men bathe in narcissism talking about themselves, their wives, and their children.
Nevertheless, Chelsea is not what you would expect: she is in a committed relationship and lives with her boyfriend who is aware of her profession. But how can she have a relationship when in her profession? Soderbergh juxtaposes the boyfriend’s business transactions, selling his time and his smiles to his clients to get ahead, to open up questions about how everyone makes sacrifices and prostitutes themselves, to varying degrees, at some point in time.
Chelsea seems to genuinely get something out of her relationship with her clients. She sets boundaries about what personal information she will reveal to them – she does not have to relate – and in return she gets a variety of rich men to salivate at the sight of her and depend on her: she feels essential. But at what cost to her self-respect? And how can this be genuine if they pay her for the service? Her personality is constructed and so is her appearance: her eyelashes are clearly glued on and she never takes them off, not even when in bed with her boyfriend. Is she always just playing a part or is she ever herself, or does she even know who she is?
Towards the end, the illusion starts to break down when Chelsea meets with a blogger who reviews escorts: a dirty, disgusting man. There is nothing upscale about their sexual encounter (though we don’t see it, we are told about it): it’s raw and it’s Chelsea being used and there’s nothing for her to hide behind anymore.
