The Girlfriend Experience - Starring Sasha Grey

Adult Movie Star Cast in Steven Soderbergh's New Film

Jun 26, 2009

Director Steven Soderbergh's low-budget film The Girlfriend Experience, starring adult movie star Sasha Grey, had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Sasha Grey stars as Chelsea, a high class escort girl whose wealthy clients bitch and moan about the state of the economy and how it may affect their affluent lifestyles. Chelsea supplies a service replicating the experience of dating without any of the complications involved in the real thing. However her attempts to further her professional status are hampered by her clients cutting back on expenses and competition from other, cheaper escort girls.

Steven Soderbergh caused a stir by casting Sasha Grey in his new movie The Girlfriend Experience. Grey has no formal acting experience prior to this movie, although she has certainly put a lot of screen time into her short career as an adult movie star. One can only speculate which one of those movies convinced Soderbergh she was his new leading lady.

Soderbergh has excelled at directing non-actors before; Debbie Doebereiner was managing a branch of KFC when she was cast in his lo-fi Bubble (2004),a film that gains much of its power from having people who aren't movie stars in the lead roles. It is less about acting than being right for the role. Debbie Dobereiner didn't have to spend time being poor in a small town because she knew all about it. The same goes for Grey in respect to The Girlfriend Experience. Grey knows all about presenting herself as the perfect male fantasy and brings a confidence in her sexual power to the role of Chelsea that is highly charged.

Soderbergh Tackles the Credit Crunch

The Girlfriend Experience is as much about the current economic crisis as it as about sexuality. Chelsea's clients are feeling the pinch and reveal their concerns to her about how it may impact upon their lives. Chelsea aims to consolidate her finances by saving her money, she charges $10,000 a night, but finds the economy is affecting her too when her wealthy clients begin to cut back on what one of them refers to as 'perks.'

Chelsea's fiance is a personal fitness instructor who also caters for a rich clientèle. Both have relationships with their clients that are essentially servile, but offer illusions of emotional intimacy. As with Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989) Soderbergh is more interested in the machinations of human sexuality than the act itself, a factor that may disappoint fans of Grey's normal oeuvre, but delight those of his own.

Although Steven Soderbergh deals with his thematic concerns with style and intelligence he hasn't quite learnt his lesson from the god awful film business expose Full Frontal (2002). Rich assholes may run the world, but on film we want to see them suffer. Their whining about their decreasing privileges may be accurate, but most of us only want to see people like this in movies if they are being eaten by carnivorous predators in a horror film. Grey, a genuine beauty, with her pale skin and delicate frame is the most interesting thing about the movie and may well have an acting career in Indie movies in front of her if that's what she wants.

The copyright of the article The Girlfriend Experience - Starring Sasha Grey in Film Festival Releases is owned by Kevin Sturton. Permission to republish The Girlfriend Experience - Starring Sasha Grey in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.