Premiere: Soderbergh's 'The Girlfriend Experience'; $1.7M to Make

Colorado [latimesblogs.latimes.com] "You were never here. This never happened."

So said Steven Soderbergh at the conclusion of the Q&A following a screening of his newest film, "The Girlfriend Experience." Listed in the festival's program guide as "Sneak Preview 2," the screening had become something of an open secret, and among the packed audience at the Eccles were many of the notable critics, journalists and online writers still in attendance at Sundance.

Even as Soderbergh took the stage before the screening he still seemed to be hedging, asking "Who told you we were showing the movie?" He added, "I don't know how this stuff gets started. I know how it gets circulated, mostly through the Internet."

He then added "a few caveats," calling the film a "work in progress" being screened as a "1080 production from a 4K file."

The film stars porn star Sasha Grey as an escort in New York City. With a website to sell herself, she approaches her work like a job, and she spends much of her time when she isn't working taking meetings with various people who claim they can boost her business in various ways. She has a live-in boyfriend who works as a personal trainer, and their domestic discord becomes the film's dramatic throughline.

Soderbergh seems interested in exploring, as one character puts it, the "transactional," the exchange that occurs between people at all levels of interaction -- in business, in love, in everyday life. Everybody wants something.

It also must be noted that there seems to be a continuing subtext to the film that can only be read as Soderbergh's dig at critics and journalists, perhaps in the wake of the mixed reception to his film "Che." (And considering how the room was full of an august selection of them, his timing was impeccable.) Film critic Glenn Kenny shows up as a sleazy porn blogger -- his first appearance onscreen elicited something of a gasp of recognition from the crowd, and he also grabbed the film's biggest laugh line -- and his "review" of the escort's services is petty and an outright lie. His sequence ends with the camera on two street singers as they declare "everyone's a critic."

While some may be put off by the film's icy surfaces and exacting framing -- Soderbergh mentioned Antonioni's "Red Desert" as an influence -- it is exciting to see a major filmmaker in the middle of a staggering run of work continue to push himself at the prolific pace Soderbergh does. Even if he is only doodling or sketching or working out some latent hostility issues, it is thrilling to see, and provides insight on his mind at work.

After the screening Soderbergh retook to the stage, explaining the film was shot for $1.7 million over 16 days in October, which explains the near-constant chatter about Obama, McCain and the economy. Similar in the manner to which he shot his film "Bubble," there was a scene-by-scene breakdown from which the actors then improvised their own lines.

One question from the audience was about Soderbergh's decision to cast an actress who has starred in more than 150 porn films as the lead in his movie. "Even though the film's not very explicit," Soderbergh said of Sasha Grey, "there's a comfort level she obviously has from making all of those films that I think is difficult to fake. There's a kind of attitude."

Apart from Grey, no one onscreen has appeared in a film before. Soderbergh said he cast them for their proximity to the characters he wanted. He explained that a journalist character in the film -- "intrusive," is what Grey says of him -- is played by Mark Jacobson, who wrote an expose of an escort ring for New York magazine.

"It's really fun as a director to watch," Soderbergh said of working with non-actors. "I really like the idea of people speaking in their own words, really speaking for themselves. Everybody in there, that's them. It's kind of fun to watch. I mean, when you're making it."

The film was written and shot in chronological order, although as it was shown the structure is jagged and mixed up, slowly revealing the true timeline as the film unfolds.

"You're working sort of without a net," Soderbergh said of reordering the film in the editing, "but you're only really like 4 feet off the ground, so it's not too terrifying."

Of the film's structure, he added: "It's something I'm still working on. Again, you get a sense of where it's going to go, but day by day you're discovering it."