At the end of the day, a person is a person, who has ups and downs, good and bad times, shining and raining days. All it takes is a gross guy who maybe hadn’t showered for 3 days and a little career ambition, a heavily guarded heart is cracked open then got broken, all in 12 hours.
“The Girlfriend Experience” is an introduction to the high end escort industry. Chelsea, played by porn star Sasha Grey, is “breath taking”. Different from your typical escort image, Chelsea has long straight dark brown hair and wears brand names, mostly in black. She is intelligent enough to carry a meaningful conversation, although most of time it’s her clients babbling about the pathetic economy and their pathetic lives. Chelsea has a living boyfriend, Chris, who is a personal trainer with a good look, a promising career and a genuine personality. The movie is mostly about Chelsea’s work, her interaction with her clients. Then there’s Chris with his clients, in a bright gym, then a bright jet, talking about the similar topics, economy, life and relationships. There seems to be two worlds, Chris’s bright healthy gym crowd, and Chelsea’s surreal wealthy clientele. But there’s really just one world, like Chelsea and Chris would go back to the same home after work, the people of the two worlds work on the Wall Street, live with their wives and children, and worry about the economy, their career and the election.
The one unreal thing is Chelsea. She appears to be what her clients want her to be. It’s very clear from the start, “they said they want the real you, but at the end, they really don’t”, she said at the beginning of the movie, in a conversation with a journalist who’s working on a book with her (the set up runs through the entire movie as narrative). Instead of pure sex, Chelsea offers a “girlfriend experience”. She dines, talks, baths, cuddles with her clients. Then who’s there doing all that? The real you or the working you? It seems Chelsea gets that all figured out, a cash cow career and a committed loving personal life. Then the young heroine cracked, one time because her long time client passes onto a new girl (with a very similar look); another she falls for a client, just when I was wondering if that would ever happen. At the end, things (unsurprisingly) go back to normal, with a souvenir from the past and an uncertainty about the future.
The movie is almost like a documentary, from the story line to style. Manhattan suddenly looks all gloomy and rainy, there may be just one scene that shows some blue sky. Most of the movie was shot from long or medium distance. Even the intense conversation between Chelsea and Chris, typically it would be cuts between the faces and eyes of the two people, instead a minute-long shot from feet away. The exception is when Chelsea is alone, most of the time riding in a car, the camera locks on her face. Chelsea rarely show emotion, even when she’s talking with Chris. The blur boundary between personal life and work goes both ways.
In the last scene, Chelsea was bathing with one of her clients. The atmosphere is very warming and comforting, much needed in this harsh economy and the harsh life everyone has to live on.
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