The Girlfriend Experience 2009

Ben Lyons, At the Movies: You really do lose yourself in these characters. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: When the turmoil of the last 12 months has receded and the 10th-anniversary deluxe collectors edition comes around, this strange, numb cinematic experience may seem fresh, shocking and poignant rather than merely and depressingly true. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Most of the dialogue is listless, and no matter how much Soderbergh snips and stitches, the movie is a corpse with twitching limbs. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's a brief 77 minutes of vague, pretty blankness; a mere sketch of a character -- and a movie. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: The current economic freefall started right around the time Steven Soderbergh was shooting The Girlfriend Experience...his artful glimpse at the business of sex is made all the richer for it. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: What could seem an empty stylistic exercise (and was, in the director's 2002 Full Frontal) serves to bring a fresh urgency to the tale, ultimately granting the audience a wisdom and perspective the characters never possess. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: It's a modest success that makes one wish Soderbergh could find some happy middle ground between funky experiments and Ocean's Eleven. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Like its protagonist, the film is pretty to look at, but emotionally chilly; conceptually rich, but narratively unfulfilling. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: After it's over, it quickly vanishes from memory, and viewers are on to the next transaction. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The Girlfriend Experience is one of Steven Soderbergh's bite-size, semi-improvised, shot-on-DV doodles, and it's the best one he's made Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: The dullness works to Grey's favor as the 2008 AVN winner for Best Oral Sex Scene can't act a lick. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: An exquisitely filmed piece of urban impressionism that, unfortunately, leaves one feeling that a sleek gadget has been needlessly purchased. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: There are layers upon layers here--a porn star taking on a serious acting role in which she plays a woman whose job is to make herself an object of male fantasy--but it's unclear whether Grey is aware of any of them. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Whatever talents Grey may demonstrate in her other films are completely absent here. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: The Girlfriend Experience proves that a visually striking film can be made on the fly. But grab-and-run is a more fruitful strategy for images than scripts. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Nowhere near as kinky or thinky as Soderbergh's sex, lies and videotape, Girlfriend pretends it has more on its mind than it really does. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Like a stag movie as conceived by the editors of the Financial Times. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: We also find ourselves wondering about the real Chelsea, but Grey plays her as such a chic, chameleonlike enigma, she remains beyond our grasp. It's all part of the game: enticing but frustrating, the ultimate tease. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Coldly voyeuristic, the film is a piece of cultural anthropology that doesn't even pretend to get into the soul of its characters. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The director's ruthlessly unsentimental depiction of Christine's lifestyle makes for fascinating, albeit distanced, voyeurism. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This film is true about human nature. It clearly it sees needs and desires. It is not universal, but within its particular focus, it is unrelenting. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What makes The Girlfriend Experience a fresh provocation is not the new ways available to build a fantasy but the near-impossibility of negotiating one you can actually believe in. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The first important cinematic statement about the recession. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Though the result is thematically slight, it's structurally sophisticated enough to reward a second viewing (or at least, unlike Grey's previous work, to be watched all the way through). Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Nobody listens in this film; everyone's just waiting for their turn to talk. At the end of the movie, everyone is alone and you have the feeling they'll stay that way. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Like an X-ray, the focused power of sex, lies and hi-def video cuts to the bone. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: This is one of the director's small, experimental, semi-improvised provocations, and if it doesn't push too deep, it's pointed enough to leave a mark. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The movie ends so abruptly (it runs a scant 77 minutes), it's a toss-up as to whether Soderbergh was trying to make an auteur statement or simply lost his mojo. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Naturalistic performances and stylish, semi-documentary-style cinematography and editing (both courtesy of the director) make for an engrossing, insightful study of internal and interpersonal conflict. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The life of an upscale hooker: Even in the throes of passion, it's beyond bland. Read more

Ronnie Scheib, Variety: Despite the pic's erotic subject matter and star (vet porn diva Sasha Grey), nothing could be less sensationalistic -- or moralistic -- than this fascinating study of free enterprise in free fall. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Grey isn't the first porn actress to go straight, but she may be the first to allegorize her own situation -- projecting an on-screen self-confidence that's indistinguishable from pathos. Read more

Jan Stuart, Washington Post: Soderbergh taps into the nervy impulses of his earliest endeavor, sex, lies and videotape as well as Ocean's Eleven. The Girlfriend Experience has something to elevate and exasperate fans of both. Read more