I first saw the well-known former XXX hardcore porn star in the low budget terrible horror film Smash Cut, and this film from director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brocjovich, Traffic, Ocean's Eleven) sounded like her kind of territory, and a return to the director's Sex, Lies, and Videotape beginnings. Basically, set during the time of the 2008 Presidential Election, between Barack Obama and John McCain, in the city of Manhattan, the story centres around the life of high class call girl and escort Chelsea, real name Christine (Sasha Grey), and the many challenges she faces between work and her personal life. Chelsea charges $2,000 an hour for all clients from all backgrounds, and for that she offers the "girlfriend experience" (GFE), where she acts like a girlfriend towards her clients, dressing for what they have in mind, whether it is dinner and a movie, or a hotel meeting, she will listen to their conversations, and with mostly business consumed clients they will mostly talk about work and finances, and of course having sex with them. The story sees five non-consecutive days of her life, she is finding recently that she is not seeing as many clients and wanting to make more money, so she arranges to meet a sleazy Interviewer (Mark Jacobson) who has met many other escorts to give them a review of an experience with them, most getting positive description and boosting their profiles to get more clients, but he says he should get a free session. She also has a boyfriend, Chris (Chris Santos), who works as a personal trainer and is aware of what she does for a living, but she has promised him she will never go with a client longer than a single night, so she is going against her rule with this suggestion of spending a weekend or longer with the interviewer, but she insists it is for the sake of making more money. Chelsea is devastated in the time we see that she loses one or two clients who have families and feel great guilt wanting to have sex with her, the interviewer gives her a lacklustre review complaining that despite looking beautiful she does not perform all sexual acts as good as other women he has been with, and not getting personal with clients, or talking about what she has been doing with her boyfriend, the only people she can open up to her female friends and one man at a bar who just wants to talk. Also starring Philip Eytan as Phillip, Glenn Kenny as The Erotic Connoisseur, T. Colby Trane as Waiter, Peter Zizzo as Zizzo, Ron Stein as Vegas Buddy #1, David Levien as David, Alan Milstein as Pete, Dennis Shields as Dennis, Marshall Gilman as Vegas Buddy #2 and Michael Roberts as Vegas Buddy #3. I had seen a few of the hardcore videos of Grey before this, so it was certainly interesting to see her play the prostitute character well enough that you can empathise with her to some extent, she is pretty much the only thing you can watch about this film, because many of the clients along the way blend into each other and seem too similar, besides of course the filthy minded interviewer who just exploits and takes advantage of her, the sexual content is not that frequent but is I suppose necessary, there is not enough focus on an engaging story, and it only gets more interesting in the last few scenes when the lead character's conscience and personal life comes into play, so overall it is an alright enough but lukewarm drama. Okay!

The StoryChelsea/Christine (Grey) tries to balance her relationship with her boyfriend (Santos) with her ambitions to grow her business as a high-priced call girl in Manhattan. She offers the full "girlfriend experience": she listens to her clients talk about themselves, eats with them at the restaurants of their choice, sees whatever movies they want to see and then has sex with them. She convinces herself that it's a mutually respectful business arrangement, and makes major life decisions based upon "compatible" birthdays.In trying to shoot it documentary-style, Soderbergh makes The Girlfriend Experience look like a student film. In casting a recently-retired porn star (Grey), he centers the film around someone who is guarded and seemingly out of touch with her own emotions, as Chelsea would be, but who would need more acting experience, training and, perhaps, time away from her old business in order to show us what we really want to see: the dramatic falling-away of Chelsea's facade, revealing Christine. I was glad, though, that Soderbergh did not exploit Grey as he might have: aside from a brief flash of nudity we see only her acting. There is no porn here, soft-core or otherwise.Why you should see itIn spite of the movie's flaws and limits, it is an interesting character study, and you'd like Grey to continue to make films whose titles you can say in mixed company.Why you shouldn't see itYou're too young. Move on or I'll tell your parents!--from my review at www.1man365movies.com

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.

Why is it that with all these reviews, only tieman64 and his review 'Eyes Wide Shut ' on 13 June 2009 is the only guy to mention the hug Sasha gives the big fat guy in the end? How did all of you miss the last thing the interviewee asks is: what kind of guy would she give her heart to? It was this last guy that she hugged like a buddy. She sad: "Come here." like a friend.Why are so many of you looking for a soft-core porn flick? Would any graphic sex change the message of the film? He left it out to stop *$%#ers like you getting it for the wrong reason.It does show that she is lonely, that she is willing to give up any security for who she feels will be the one. OK, she blew it, but it wasn't her fault. There is no indication she is returning to her old boyfriend. He is playing the field just like the next guy. She's alone.Funnily enough, I was actually not to impressed until the last scene, when she hugged the big guy. That the dialog is improvised only shows how &^$%ed up the basic conversations are of the average American. Useless, meaningless drivel. Don't blame the director for that. It only adds to the alienation Sasha is dealing with. Anyway, tieman64. Good review, especially for mentioning the big fat Jewish guy at the end. Just goes to show almost the rest of you were watching the film for the wrong reason. Go get laid, and try to do it for free, OK?