The Girlfriend Experience DVD Review

The Girlfriend Experience - A Mongrel Media Release

On DVD: September 29th, 2009

Rated 14A for sexual content, nudity and language

Running time: 78 minutes

Steven Soderbergh (dir.)

David Levien (writer)

Brian Koppelman (writer)

Ross Godfrey (music)

Sasha Grey as Chelsea / Christine

Chris Santos as Chris

Philip Eytan as Phillip

T. Colby Trane as Waiter

Peter Zizzo as Zizzo

Our reviews below:

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The Girlfriend Experience DVD Review By John C.

*** (out of 4)

The Girlfriend Experience is the latest experimental film from director Steven Soderbergh. It’s the story of a high-end escort, Chelsea (Sasha Grey), and the clients and people she has to deal with, as well as trying to remain in a relationship with her boyfriend.

It’s only 78-minutes long, and stars a cast of unknowns. It’s music quite literally comes from buskers, which I thought was a very nice touch. My only real complaint is that some scenes are shot with a handheld camera that shakes up and down and keeps being zoomed in and out. Thankfully though, most of the scenes are shot with a steady cam, and the film works more often than it doesn’t. The movie never drags, mainly due to the solid acting. This is an interesting film that may not be for everyone, but I think it’s well worth checking out.

The DVD includes the featurette HDNet: A Look at The Girlfriend Experience, commentary with director Steven Soderbergh and actor Sasha Grey, and an alternate cut of the film.

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The Girlfriend Experience DVD Review By Erin V.

*** (out of 4)

With the Ocean's trilogy, the Ché films, and now the new Matt Damon movie The Informant, to name but a few, Steven Soderbergh has an interesting repertoire of films, both mainstream and experimental.

The Girlfriend Experience is one of his experimental ones - clearly. From the varied style from scene to scene, to the narrative style, this is a well made, although not all that mainstream movie. A few times, the style got to be too much for me, such as a few scenes in an airplane which were filmed on some sort of handheld camera, focusing mostly on the actors shirts and shoes more than their faces - and tilting sideways... Was the person holding the camera supposed to have forgotten they were holding it, or that it was on? One of the cooler aspects though, is that quite frequently, the background music of scenes was actually provided by buskers in the scenes - a nice touch.

Overall, The Girlfriend Experience explores it's issues in an interesting, and tame enough way. I am glad that this film was more talk in this case, and didn't insist on showing too much. Like with Steven Soderbergh's previous films, I would say that this one is worth seeing.

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The Girlfriend Experience DVD Review By Nicole

*** (out of 4)

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The Girlfriend Experience DVD Review By Maureen

*** (out of 4)

Review N/A

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The Girlfriend Experience DVD Review By Tony

*** (out of 4)

Review N/A

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Consensus: *** (Out of 4)