"The Girlfriend Experience"-Not My Experience

When I had first head about Steven Soderbergh filming "The Girlfriend Experience" last year, I immediately cringed at the thought of yet another film that misrepresents the lifestyle of a sex worker, especially coming from the perspective of the mainstream Hollywood machine, whom I abhor greatly. When I found it would star porn starlet du jour Sasha Grey, I was a little relieved, but not totally convinced it would be accurate. Like many of her fans, I'm enamored with Grey's beauty and intelligence, as well as her different take on the porn industry. Still, Sasha Grey is not an escort and she wasn't writing the script. Most likely "The Girlfriend Experience" was a film that stemmed from all the hoopla over the Elliot Spitzer scandal and the fascination with the high priced escort that Spitzer had been seeing before he went down. Suddenly, everybody wanted to know what the life of an escort was like...ooohhhh boy! And really, nobody will ever get it right because our experiences vary so greatly.
I had heard some mixed reviews about the film before attending, but was curious to check it out regardless. Soderbergh specifically cast non-actors for all the roles in the film and most of the dialogue was improvised. I knew Grey had limited acting ability from watching her porn films in which she deadpans each line with little emotion, and this film is no different. Even her voiceovers in the film are delivered in her trademark monotone, but that's the least of it. Grey here plays Chelsea, an upscale escort in New York who lives with he personal trainer boyfriend Chris, played by real life personal trainer, Chris Santos. She shares little emotion or even conversational skills as she sees her upscale businessman clients and discusses the downturn of the economy with them by just nodding and agreeing with everything they say. Supposedly Chelsea makes "$2000 an hour" but this is never really established in the film, just assumed. I would even wonder why she charges that much, as other than a pretty face and some expensive lingerie, she's not offering much to these guys. The best escorts I know charge $300, $400, or $500 an hour and provide a lot more conversational assistance and are probably better fucks than Chelsea.
It's had to tell if it's a decision on the part of the filmmakers to show the escort as cold, shut-down, and reserved or if that's just Grey's thing. When a reporter asks about hev personality with clients she states that she plays "who they want me to be" and not a reflection of herself. While some escorts may agree with this, I personally don't. The best escorts offer up their real selves to clients, making some modifications, but learning to communicate with them as they would with anybody else in the real wold, making a connection and building off that. Most escorts market themselves in a way that reflection who they are or at least find comfortable, so if Chelsea is marketing herself as a vapid NYC socialite, then I'm sure that's who her clients want her to be.
There are a few doses of reality thrown in here, such as when a tactless client sees Chelsea in public and says hello, or the injection of a Dave Elms-type character who convinces her to do a free session with him in exchange for a good review on his "Erotic Conniseur" escort review website. (Elms is known for doing doing the same thing with escorts on The Erotic review; he's now in jail after being charged with attempted murder.) Her experience with the guy goes unspeakably bad and he gives Chelsea a horrible review that actually speaks truths about her personality. There were several laughs in the theatre when the review was read out loud, almost in agreement with the criticism of Chelsea's dull personality compounded with her high price tag.
The high point in the film is actually the performance by boyfriend Santos, who actually does posses some acting ability, despite his somewhat dislikable character. He's a personal trainer who also uses his body (somewhat) as a commodity and is constantly looking for new ways to increase his skills and clientele, similar to his girlfriend. Ultimately, that's what this film is all about, and we see the dichotomy of how each one deals with their clients, both of them ultimately bullshitting their way into bleeding the most money possible out of them. Chris puts forward more of an effort, while Chelsea just expects that these men want to pay her a fortune to have her be some arm candy for the night and nod in agreement with their grievances.
Like most (or all?) films with a sex worker character, Chelsea must go though a punishment of some kind. What's amazingly stupid about this plot turn is that the film goes though all this build up of portraying Chelsea as this well put together, seemingly intelligent (this is the film, not my observations) escort in a committed relationship and she goes on to make one of the stupidest mistakes one can make as an escort. A client, who she's only seen once, offers to dump his family and life commitments to take her away on a weekend trip and possibly more, causing her to actually consider entering into a relationship with a john, albeit one she barely knows and who is married with children. He boyfriend Chris is shocked at this news and their relationship suffers a big blow, but not before he gives her a cautionary lecture about what a dumb move she's making. She gets burned, of course, and stands alone in the middle of nowhere, crying, because she actually injected emotion into he line of work, and well, an escort should know better.
There were a few slight moments of familiarity but ultimately, I couldn't relate. The characters were underdeveloped, the dialogue was poorly delivered (with a few exceptions) and very little of it reflects my experience as an escort (then again, I don't wear Michael Kors dresses or buy LaPerla lingerie). Not to mention that, it's just not a very good film. Most moviegoers will be bored or sorely disappointed.
I attended the screening with a few escort friends of mine, as well as a large group of BDSM aficionados and other "sex-positive" people. Immediately afterwards, the three of us were put on the spot with questions about our lifestyle and how it compared to Chelsea's. Bebe and Paige, my escort friends, agreed with a lot of the film's content and how it was handled, I did not. Still, it sparked a lot of good discussion that continued once we got to a local bar and and tons of questions from curious individuals who wanted to know about the "real" escort lifestyle. And perhaps this is the best way to inform people (in addition to blogging) about what they're curious to know rather than having some Hollywood writers concoct a bunch of half-truths and then "punish" us for our career choice.
Maybe that's the lesson I leaned from "The Girlfriend Experience"...speak up! Otherwise people are going to speak for you, and you're not going to like what they have to say.




