Soderbergh’s unpredictability is perhaps his most reliable trait and true to form The Girlfriend Experience is both an interesting experiment in minimalism and an unlikely successor to his recent triumph The Informant!. The film’s main talking point is the casting of porn star Sasha Grey as a high-class Manhattan escort who promises ‘the ultimate girlfriend experience’ to her needy clients. Taking her background into consideration (a profession that arguably requires a degree of acting) Grey is unsurprisingly convincing as the emotionally vague Chelsea. However the oft-referenced economic downturn provides the backdrop implying that Soderbergh’s film is as much about sales as sex. This idea finds its definitive expression in the comodification of the body, the suggestion that the trades plied by Chelsea and her personal trainer boyfriend are in fact not dissimilar. Sadly Soderbergh explores this parallel in a manner about as subtle as his film’s tag-line, ‘See it with someone you fuck’.
