The Girlfriend Experience

So the closing credits scroll on THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE and I turn to my wife and say, “I don’t know anything about these characters that I didn’t know in the first fifteen minutes.”

Sasha Grey plays a middle – high class hooker. She appears to be primarily concerned with running her business and cultivating her clients, and making as much money as she can as fast as she can. Chris Santos plays her boyfriend, a personal trainer who appears to be primarily concerned with running his business, cultivating his clients, and making as much money as he can as fast as he can. Hovering over them and their clients is the financial meltdown of ’08.

And that’s it, really. As the film goes on and its characters’ fortunes change, they appear to remain essentially the same people they were going in. One could argue that Grey’s character learns a life lesson along the way, but I submit that anyone in her line of work would have learned that particular lesson long before the opening credits hit the screen.

Perhaps the film works less as a drama and more as a (if you’ll forgive the overused phrase) tone poem. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE evokes a sense of uncertainty and longing, one that permeates not only the lives of its characters but American society in the dark year of 2008. That’s fine, but hey, I was in America in 2008. Take me somewhere new.