Despite trying to play it off as a rumor, Steven Soderbergh did screen his latest lo-fi indie film, “The Girlfriend Experience” at Sundance last night. Shot apparently on a weekend last year, the film explores the world of high-class escorts who provide more than just sex (a make-believe “girlfriend experience”) and stars young rising porn star Sasha Grey. Various reports are online.
Jeffrey Wells calls it “not half bad” and notes that excellent Brooklyn-based film critic (who we see at our bar all the time) Glen Kenny plays a “sleazy erotic website guy who exploits the main hooker character (Grey). He has the funniest lines in the film and, if I’m not mistaken, wrote the smart-ass erotic review that we hear in voiceover.”
Film school rejects called the screening, “one of the worst kept surprises of this year’s Sundance Film Festival,” and said while it was hard to write a review of the film that was clearly a rough-cut/ work in progress, it was also, “leaps and bounds better than ‘Bubble'” (the first of Soderbergh’s 2005 down and dirty lo-fi indie films made for 2929 Entertainment that not a lot of people warmed to; he’s made a deal to make six films like this: fast, cheap and hopefully not out of control).
Don’t expect a tawdry smut experience. As Cinematical notes this is thinking man’s take on sexual politics, “there’s no sex. There’s a minimum of nudity, and we don’t see anyone doing the deed, but as Grey’s relationship with her boyfriend is challenged by her work.”
Soderbergh also spoke and noted that ‘TGE’ was shot in 16 days for $1.7 million. Apparently the film is from an exact time and place. October of last year when the economic crisis and a looming election was hitting a fever pitch. Cinematical calls it a ” ‘a period piece from October 2008’. People complain about the electoral debates, the bailout, the economy in free-fall; one of Grey’s clients, as he undresses, notes how she has to vote for McCain to best support the state of Israel. Grey and her boyfriend are freelancers and we watch them trying to stay paid and afloat in 2008, an effort that’s all about the sell, the struggle, the work.”
We’re excited for it, but let’s face it: fans of Sasha Grey lost interest at paragraph four and bailed to another website. This won’t be for everyone.