I have always – liked – the way elites hide their perversions behind their own vocabulary and the sake for art! Here the movie is about the oldest job in the world: for the common people, it's prostitute or hooker but for those elites, it becomes an escort! As always, we have a pretty idyllic, intellectual depiction of the job (in France, we have terribly poor but critically acclaimed Ozon that says that every girl loves to be a prostitute!). Whereas this reality is about sex and money, the movie actually closes its eyes upon it! Worst, as our famous french DSK told us, those privileged husbands recruit prostitutes to deal with their sexual fantasies they fail to do with their wife! Here, the escort is shamefully a gentle shoulder to chat, almost like a babysitter!Instead to depict what it is really, the movie is an endless babble, documentary style about the American life (rather nightmare!): so it speaks about money, business, invest project, Vegas to have fun (understand orgies), cocaine for fun, sports center and fitness trainer, brand clothes (understand a name for each piece)… Honestly, should I live in that world (that comes closer and closer in France), I would finish crazy so much it's a material world, without inspiration or values… Visually, the movie is just awful as it's the usual actual blue / orange cinematography… The editing is stupid because deconstructing the time-line is the cheap tool to directors that have no inspiration… At the end, this movie is just garbage, endless headache (even if it's only 76 minutes)… But, there is Sasha! It's nice to see her with clothes on and bringing her nice smile to do quiet scene: honestly, she saves the movie all by herself because with another casting, it would have been pure s…t !

New York City glamour, extremely real acting and scenarios followed by CNN circa 2008 mumbo-jumbo, annoyingly flashy cinematography, and wanna-be American Psycho depravity-in-materialism preaching. Rarely do it want to shut off a movie every five minutes, and if so, even more rarely do I find something to respect in the next five. As to Sasha Grey and her acting abilities, I think she's OK at it. Many reviews scathe her for "deadpan", but I think that's what high-class dumb sluts actually are probably like. Pretty much empty. Making the most of what god gave them in a depraved way. To me it seems real. The "hooker's boyfriend" character was great, which is hard to pull off in my mind. I really empathized with this guy in a weird situation.What's not real are the characters of many, though not all, of the "rich assholes". That's about as eloquent as Soderberg is with these characters, "They're just rich assholes" when "the rest of us are hurting" as we are reminded again, and again, and again. The script and plot line isn't great, often forced by some contrived circumstance, and really goes nowhere in the end. Maybe 5 is too generous. I guess I was intrigued.

The Girlfriend Experience is almost fascinatingly awful. Not a case of 'so bad it's good', but one to chew over, to list just how many different shades of empty it featured. And then forget it forever, or until you enrol for BA Media, Social Networks and Comms at the University of Inanity.At one and the same moment, it is and is not about the financial meltdown, is and is not about commerce, about the Big Apple. It's definitely not about the 'big O'. As far as I could see, desire was not one of the themes being explored. Curious omission, wouldn't you agree.The director and his 'breakthrough' star seem determined to carry her as far from her hardcore persona as they can; in short, by making her behaviour seem fairly normal, or more accurately, how might your everyday young woman with no acting experience respond to the task of playing the role of an escort? This is why I referred to 'assisted reality': reality being the context for banal dialogue. Tedious conversation, of which this film is bursting.Sasha Grey, unsurprisingly, gives Chelsea no personality, no inner life. She listens to rich men monotone about money and their woes, her eyes glazed over, and later we hear her dispassionately relate what went on once they got back to the bedroom. Don't expect any kinky scenes and don't look forward to the sort of demented energy she habitually put into her xxx scenes. Her character, Chelsea, is vapid and wholly unbelievable as a super high class hooker, much less as someone's actual girlfriend. The man playing her boyfriend puts more energy into his performance but it is still devoid of interest.The trouble is, this isn't a documentary, an analysis of venality or the greed is good culture, but nor is it a study of eroticism or desire. So when Chelsea speaks highly of her own skills as a seductress, we can't relate to it; when an unsatisfied client rubbishes her on the web, it's all too true.To sum up, the visual style is drab and wearying, the outbursts of music jarring and irrelevant. Nobody had their heart in this project. The film's emptiness would seem to reflect the emptiness of Sasha Grey in real life, often described as glacially detached, but written up as brainy and sophisticated by idiots basing their opinion solely on what goes on her 'likes' list.Maybe it says something about the world we've moved into. Hasn't Soderbergh retired now?

This disappoints hugely and I know why - Soderbergh and his bunch of family-guy buds who wrote/produced this have no concept whatsoever of what the escort-business is about: highly socialized prostitution! They clown around with a way too young and unsophisticated porn star (dress-up doll as a call-girl) like a bunch of puppies. 'Escort' is very sophisticated and serious business and has been covered very well in: 'Half Moon Street' and 'The Man from Elysian Fields'. Soderbergh should stick to the hand-held gritty stuff he does so very well: Sex, Lies and Videotape, Out of Sight, Erin Brokovitch, The Limey, Traffic, et al. He is totally out of his depth here - an embarrassment. Reminded me a bit of his miss with the quasi documentary: Full Frontal. Then it struck me - Soderbergh is attempting to fill the shoes of Robert Altman, whose docu. ensemble pieces were superb: Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, A Prarie Home Companion - even Mash held the right balance of ensemble v. star power.Steven directs star-power very well: Julia Roberts, George Clooney, JLo, Catherine & Michael, Benicio, Terrence Stamp, etc. There is no one with even a pulse in this sad spectacle.