from www.smh.com.au – MOVIES don’t matter any more. So says Steven Soderbergh in an interview (at suicidegirls.com) about this movie, one of his low-budget experiments in modern alienation. “Let me be more specific. They are more influential than they’ve ever been and less important than they’ve ever been. They’re influential in terms of how people act and how they dress and also what they laugh at. But in terms of importance? In terms of what they can do for us, how they can enhance us? I think they’ve never been less important than they are now . . . I think it’s still the dominant art form but I don’t think it’s an important art form any more.”

If he’s right, then it’s easier to understand why he’s experimenting in films such as this. He might be trying to find a new way to engage us, or he might be just amusing himself while the money is still there. I’m not sure which but I am sure that if this is the way forward, I’ll have to kill myself. It may be true that movies don’t matter any more; I would say it’s true this one doesn’t.

The film is about money and love in a time of financial chaos, so it’s certainly current. It’s set in New York in October 2008, amid the economic crash. One of the only entertaining moments has a pudgy Orthodox Jewish jeweller (Elon Dershowitz) telling a beautiful young escort (Sasha Grey) not to put her money into diamonds but to buy gold. He’s taking his trousers off as he does this, in the back room of his shop in Manhattan. She is already half naked. It’s funny because it’s so domestic and matter-of-fact. He’s a regular client; she wants some advice. There’s some bizarre reality to the scene, which is not often true in other bits.

This is a self-conscious film from a gifted director who has often been prepared to go where the mainstream doesn’t flow. He’s successful in both worlds, as is Gus Van Sant. Soderbergh has balanced his ability to make commercial hits ( Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brockovich) with his desire to do more personal, innovative and political films – such as Traffic, The Good German or Schizopolis. This one offers an interesting idea but falters in the casting.

To be honest, Sasha Grey is a face in search of an expression and the whole movie depends on her performance. The only reason she is there is that she’s a porn actress and Soderbergh wants to make a point about the way porn has become mainstream in Western culture.

Grey chose porn just after her 18th birthday, while she was going to college. She quickly earned a reputation for doing more extreme stuff, closer to the edge of violence. She’s apparently smart, articulate and comfortable with her work. All of which attracted Soderbergh, because he wanted to make a film about the transactions of modern life, through the prism of sex. ln this, he is going where many men have gone before, if you will excuse the pun. Bunuel and Godard, in particular, looked at prostitution as a form of expression in the 1960s. This is a film very much in their wake.

The Girlfriend Experience is about how things have changed. Christine (Grey) offers more than sex. She gives rich men a degree of intimacy, like a real girlfriend but without the hassles of commitment or even real feelings. She listens to their problems, smooths their brows, inquires after their work. Sometimes they don’t have sex, as she notes in her diary. She also records the details of what designer clothes she wore and which fashionable eatery they visited, in order to keep track.

To her clients, she is Chelsea. At home with her boyfriend, Chris (Chris Santos), a physical trainer, she’s Christine, an affectionate lover who likes movies, wine and long conversations.

Part of the dramatic problem is that there’s not much difference between the two versions of this woman. Chelsea is outwardly sophisticated, distant, self-absorbed and not very warm; so is Christine, only with a touch more vulnerability. That may be the point, or it may be just that Grey doesn’t know how to modulate her performance. Either way, she’s a plank, which is not much to build a movie on. Adding a series of scenes in which everyone talks about money is not a dramatic solution. I was reduced to admiring the decor of some of New York’s swankiest bars and restaurants and the texture of Soderbergh’s cinematography.

He is pursuing an interesting kind of career and his films are always engaging on some level but this one gives us notorious casting instead of an effective screen presence.

Whatever he has to say is obscured by Grey’s glassy-eyed, uncommunicative performance. She may have done 176 other films but she probably hasn’t needed to rely on her eyes as much before. That’s not her fault; Soderbergh is the master of ceremonies and he fails to make clear why she’s interesting.