Nowadays, Steven Soderbergh is the hardest-working man in Hollywood. Since 2000, he has directed a dozen films and all 10 episodes of HBO's "K Street." His movies can be grouped, roughly, under three headings. First, there are his glossy blockbusters, the Ocean's series; then, art house efforts such as Solaris and Che; finally, his indie digressions, shot quickly, with digital cameras, in the shadow of underground film pioneer John Cassavetes.
Soderbergh's latest, The Girlfriend Experience, falls into the latter category. It focuses on Chelsea, a high-end Manhattan hooker with a clientele of wealthy men. A dream date for the sophisticated male, Chelsea is young and sexy, well dressed and discreet, the kind of woman you could take to see Man on Wire and, afterward, discuss the movie (in general terms, at least) over dinner at a chic restaurant. Although it's all in a night's work for Chelsea, she gives the impression that, occasionally, feelings or concerns stir. After all, she isn't working the cheap motel circuit on the hourly plan. During what passes as quality time, Chelsea gets to know the men she serves.
In what must have seemed an inspired idea at the time, Soderbergh cast a hardcore porn star, Sasha Grey, as Chelsea. Of course, one of the problems with hardcore pornos is that the actors usually look bored out of their skulls. Soderbergh must have forgotten to tell Grey that The Girlfriend Experience is supposed to be art. Maybe she forgot she was acting.
Soderbergh filmed The Girlfriend Experience last October and November, and much of the ambient conversation concerns the bailout and what's wrong with it. Elliptical and filled with blurry pans of treetops and out-of-focus group shots signifying nothing, the film's fly-on-the-wall perspective on the banality of consumption in the posh precincts near Wall Street is more interesting than enlightening-or entertaining. n
Opens June 12 at the Oriental Theatre.
