The Girlfriend Experience
Release Date:
May 22, 2009
Limited release
Dear Carolyn,
I love my girlfriend, but her job is starting to interfere with our relationship. I'm getting jealous of how attentive she is to her clients' needs. What about my needs? And now she's going this weekend on a business trip... Did I mention that she's a high class call
girl?
Signed,
Heart Belongs to a Hooker
The Girlfriend Experience, brings us in to the life of an elite call girl named Chelsea. The ups and downs, the ins and outs, concerns about the recession. With Chelsea you don't just get the sex. You can also get fine dining, perhaps take in a show, go for a leisurely stroll with some good conversation, a true girlfriend experience. There's no need to search out that weekly paper that has the ads for escorts, just go to her website and all your needs will be met.
Shot on a budget of $1.7 million in just 16 days, The Girlfriend Experience, like his previous film Bubble, employs what Soderbergh likes to call "structured improvisation," in which the performers are given an outline of where the scene should go, and they fill in the blanks.
In choosing critically acclaimed actress Sasha Grey to carry this film, director Steven Soderbergh looks to bring her raw talent to the big screen. Grey, who interacts with her fans often through Twitter and MySpace, has risen to the top of the adult film industry by bringing an intensity to her films that few match. Her most recent work includes the lead role in Paul Thomas' Throat: A Cautionary Tale, a re-imagining of the classic Deep Throat.
Beyond her film work, the cerebral Miss Grey is a part of the duo ATelecine with Pablo St. Francis, has modeled for American Apparel and Manoukian, and even had a stint as a guest DJ at Indie 103.1 in Los Angeles. (Joshua Rice/BOP)