Keough's Christine is as smart as she is beautiful, resourceful as she is intelligent, and ruthless as she is determined law is simply the field she's decided to excel in. Riley Keough, the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley and heir to his hairline, plays Christine Reade, a second-year law student who's scored an internship at Kirkland Allen, a top law firm in Chicago. An Orthodox Jewish diamond merchant, while stripping off his clothes, instructs Chelsea to vote for John McCain.Related Steven Soderbergh watches TV: "Why do you think you can improve on what's real?" Making small talk with clients, both Chelsea and Chris are drawn into discussions of the Wall Street bailout. The speed with which The Girlfriend Experience was made and released gives it a near-journalistic feel. Those pictures also equated capitalism and prostitution, similarly punctuating the action with nonfiction elements and characters. In both metaphor and technique, The Girlfriend Experience echoes such '60s-vintage Jean-Luc Godard films as My Life to Live and Two or Three Things I Know About Her. So Chelsea is interviewed by journalist Mark Jacobson, who has actually reported on New York's sex industry. He also cast nonprofessional actors, and encouraged them to improvise.
In an attempt to make this wisp of a story more compelling, Soderbergh has shattered the narrative, which he presents in chronological disorder. So men can be mean to prostitutes? And the profession is hard to reconcile with emotional stability? Who would have guessed?
Even worse, Chelsea had sex for free with the smarmy Erotic Connoisseur (played by real-life movie critic Glenn Kenny), who then gave her a bad review on his Web site. Other problems arise as well: One regular client seems to have defected to a new competitor who looks a lot like Chelsea, only a few minutes younger. she decides to spend the weekend with him. But when she meets a guy she thinks might be "the one" - even though he's married and lives in L.A. One of them is that Chelsea is not allowed to go on trips with any of her clients. Chris (Chris Santos) is fine with his live-in girlfriend's occupation, but the couple has a few rules. Sounds like exhausting work already, but Chelsea also has to tend to a real-life boyfriend who works as a personal trainer to stockbrokers and bond traders. For a night - and a price - she'll be both friend and lover. Her singular appeal is that she offers more than sex. The latest digital-video experiment from the director of Ocean's Eleven and Sex, Lies & Videotape, this low-budget exercise stars porn-flick veteran Sasha Grey, who plays a tastefully attired Manhattan call girl known alternately as Chelsea or Christine. But as the Dow Jones Index tanks, the futures market in sex and sympathy is looking precarious. Prostitution proves a path to financial independence in The Girlfriend Experience, a new Steven Soderbergh movie shot (and set) in October 2008.
Stripped Bare: Shot quickly and on a small budget, The Girlfriend Experience suggests a documentarian spareness, but shows off some stylish cinematography nonetheless.