The Girlfriend Experience

It took me a couple of days to process the experience. We saw Steven Soderbergh's newest film on saturday during one of our semi-regular movie days. It was hot out and it seemed the best way to spend the weekend might be hiding from the sun in a movie theater. Please be cautioned that I am going to "spoil" the plot here.

The girlfriend experience is more a meditation than a linear narrative. You won't find suspense, twists, turns, or even any surprises. The characters move along through surface conversations mouthing sincere words in stale voices, never really leaving you with the impression that they feel anything. A couple of reviews that I've seen have chalked this up primarily to the fact that the film's lead Sasha Grey is an adult film actress and therefore has no dramatic ability. This is a point with which I strongly disagree.

This is not simply a boring film about an unsympathetic prostitute played by a bad adult actress. Instead it's, as the name promises, an experience that draws you in. While we're all prepared to accept that an escort could never be in a real, long-term relationship (a minor running theme in the film), along the way we encounter people in business, the arts, education all compelled to please for money. A commentary on the state of work, we all go to job at which we're asked to "pretend" to feel: company picnics and bonding sessions are but one example.

Customer service, which has worked it's way into so many of our jobs these days, depends not upon delivering a quality product or simply performing a service well, but on convincing a the customer that for the short time you're together a real friendship is unfolding. Hair stylists do it. Bar tenders do it. Sales associates do it. Teachers do it. We all sell a kind of emotional connection with our customers that is necessarily artificial--in that it implies a level of connection and intimacy that simply will never exist. It's hard through out the eighty minutes of relentless procession of financial exchange that make up the moments of the characters' lives to not see at least one interaction that seems oddly familiar. 

The film is closed with a moment that has virtually nothing to do with the plot (so in some sense this is not a spoiler). Sasha Grey finds herself cradled in the arms of a wealthy diamond store owner dispensing financial advise. At the mere touch of her skin, he experiences what the audience is left to assume must be P.E. 

It's an image that haunts you well after the movie ends. This is not a film about ambiguously broken people. Rather it's a film about commerce and how commerce infects relationships and ultimately disintegrates our ability to engage in genuine intimacy. I highly recommend this film. 

Comments

[Andrew]

Wow this really sounds interesting and thought-provoking. And it is something I have struggled with here in Japan, too. The level of customer service is usually ratcheted up to an extremely high level here, because customers expect it. Especially as a foreigner, I feel that people expect me to be on call as their "foreign friend" when they want some variety or English help. Japanese people are usually shy and private about their lives, but they often expect me to be very open and revealing about my life and family. It does make me uncomfortable and resentful at times, to be honest.

I think this trend will continue in an age where we are more "connected" to each other socially, and yet somehow always too busy and isolated to engage in face-to-face conversation.

[Tavolini]

Wow--great review. I love your line, "Customer service...depends not upon delivering a quality product or simply performing a service well, but on convincing a the customer that for the short time you're together a real friendship is unfolding."

It's true, huh? I've worked ONLY customer service positions throughout my life, and never really thought of it that way. Makes me wonder if I'm actually able to have any real friends, or if its mostly a ruse.

I'd like to watch this movie--thanks for sharing. (Oh, and I totally cheat and use box falafel mix)