The Girlfriend Experience

First Hit: A well done, interesting and curious film which stayed with me for days.

Sasha Grey plays Chelsea, a high priced escort whose profession is to give her clients a “Girlfriend Experience”. She will have dinner, listen to whatever subject her client wants to talk about, feign real and casual interest, and will also sleep with them if that is what the client wants.

Building up a clientèle of people who have money and will regularly see her creates a connectedness between her and her clients. She learns something about each of them and asking the right questions at the right time, creates a space for the client to relax, and then leaves requiring nothing more than payment of $2,000 a night. Chelsea’s live in boyfriend Chris (played by Chris Santos) is also in the relationship building business. He is a personal trainer and works independently in health clubs to help clients become fit. It is obvious from the film’s start, that both of them believe that their looks and what’s on the outside is of ultimate importance.

Chelsea keeps a log of her clients and her dates with them and each entry begins with what she wore and how she looked wearing it. Their conversations when they are together in their upscale apartment are muted and superficial. Even when there is an argument, there is little discussion around what is really going on for them although Chris does make one attempt. It is clear that neither one of them has many (if any) friends nor is their relationship anything other than superficial at best.

During the film Chelsea has a meeting with a man who is either a client that just wants to talk or is someone interviewing her for research; it wasn’t clear to me, however his probing questions are deflected and elicit very little about how she got to this point in her life. She doesn’t want to be known and she painstakingly hides who she is from her boyfriend, clients and herself.

The one crack in her armor is when she becomes interested in a client on a personal level and after making a forbidden weekend date, he blows her off. In this scene she, for the first time, seems truly affected.

However, the last scene she is back at work doing what she does best, providing the appropriate level of service to a long term client.

Grey is wonderful as a emotionally distant high class escort. I’m sure that her real life experience as a porn film star added to the realness of being distant and separated from life, but performing well in life instead. Santos has the look and feel of a personal trainer and also appropriately distant. Steven Soderbergh directed this film smoothly and effortlessly. Shifting time, letting scenes play out, and creating the right look and feel making the film seem both dramatic fiction and also documentary in its revelations.

Overall: I kept moving into and out of the film as it played out. I studied the film and at times, but also got caught up into the film. It was, in hindsight, a very interesting and thought provoking experience.

Management

First Hit: This film never felt like it left the ground and soared, yet in ways it depicted being grounded and giving the illusion of learning how to soar.

Jennifer Aniston is one of those beautiful women who are also good at looking plain. In this film she plays Sue, a successful saleswoman who sells motel room art.

On her journey she stays at a family owned motel in Kingman, Arizona where she meets Mike the lovelorn and lost son of the motel owners. Mike is played by Steve Zahn. We watch Mike give Sue the high and low look when she is at the front desk checking into the motel. Mike sees her beauty and also thinks, probably because her plain and forlorn air, he might have a chance at meeting her.

His plot is to take up an old stale bottle of wine to her room and position it as the “standard complimentary welcome” gift. He does this and gets basically a cold shoulder. Not a great scene but the story starts here because it reveals a real life sense of each the characters. You see Sue working on her computer but she is playing solitaire, you sense the awkwardness of their interaction, you see the loneliness in their looks and the stilted dialog. When she lets him touch her butt it is both funny and deeply revealing moment for both, her disconnection from the act and his amazement that he’s touching her butt.

Then there is one section of dialog when Mike asks Sue if she wants kids. These resulting scenes move the film forward; Sue looking for herself and Mike hoping he’s part of Sue’s life.

Aniston gives a strong performance as a road warrior looking for a place to land while keeping herself so busy she ignores that her life is passing her by. However, she gets traction on her life and Aniston makes good on her promise of intelligent beauty. Zahn didn’t impress me at the beginning of the film; I didn’t see the diamond in the rough, and this is how it was suppose to be. It worked, and as Zahn makes his transformation through the film I actually started to believe he would be a good match for Aniston.

Overall: As a “small” film (as my friend called it), it stood out as something enjoyable to watch and it does give pause and cause towards thought days after seeing it.

Soloist

First Hit: Although poorly written and adequately directed there were good moments in this overly staged film.

Two very wonderful actors Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. lost their way or got lost with this poorly written film.

The basic story is that Nathaniel Ayers (Played by Foxx) is a schizophrenic musician who dropped out of Julliard and finds peace in the streets of LA playing music between buildings and under bridges.

Steve Lopes (Played by Downey) is a LA Times reporter who is looking for a story and stumbles on Ayers playing his two stringed violin in front of a statue of Beethoven. Steve Lopes becomes fascinated with Ayers after he discovers he was a Julliard Music School dropout and begins to write stories of Ayers in his newspaper columns.

This is a film about friendship and trust. However, there was something missing in the dialogue. There was something which made the dialogue seem out of place. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it felt obvious that the dialogue didn’t capture the depth of the real life budding friendship on which this film was based.

Then there were the scenes just outside The Lamp which is a homeless shelter and rehab compound in downtown LA. Somehow the scenes outside the compound’s gates felt artificial. They felt staged and too well choreographed to be real although some of the characters felt real – it was the staging and choreography which didn’t work for me.

I thought Foxx did a wonderful job of showing us schizophrenia with the assistance of the director’s choice of using multiple voices in the background until one, which depicted Ayers’ action, emerged to forefront. I didn’t think Foxx did a very good job of fingering the notes on the cello because it was obvious he was not following the score or melody. The staged scenes in front of The Lamp were a letdown and this was the director’s fault. Downey was fine with the dialog he was given. Unfortunately, the script lacked a deep cohesiveness to bring the story together based on the Downey’s and Foxx’s friendship.

Overall: This film was a disappointment. To have such great actors and to end up with a schizophrenic film was a shame.

Obsessed

First Hit: This film fell flat and wasn’t very engaging.

Another takeoff on Fatal Attraction, in this case Lisa Sheridan (Played by Ali Larter) is a temp worker who becomes Obsessed with Derek Charles (Played by Idris Elba) a successful and happily married financier in a LA finance company.

Lisa wrangles her way to work for Derek when his assistant is out sick and manages to use her beguiling charms to manipulate her way into interactions with Derek. Derek has a history with his assistants because his wife Sharon (Played Beyonce Knowles) was once an assistant in the firm and Derek had a reputation at being quite the ladies man.

The obsession starts with flirts, then the company Christmas party dance where a wrestling match in a bathroom stall ensues, then progresses to her showing up at an off-site conference. Sharon finally learns of Lisa’s attempts to seduce her husband and vows to straighten things out and in the end she does.

Larter is quite sexy and enticing in her role. I’m not sure Elba was quite believable and his behavior wasn’t really in tune with the character. Knowles generally stole the scenes she was in. The whole office staff seemed out of touch with today’s work life and the characters were flat, one dimensional and added little to the story line.

Overall: A generally poor film which covered no new ground while setting back office behavior a few years.

Tokyo Sonata

First Hit: Interesting, rich, and powerful view of a Japanese family learning how to cope with and make adjustments in their lives when the status quo falls away.

Everyone in this family participates in this richly developed film of a Japanese family coming to grips with a change in the status quo.

The older son Takashi (Played by Yu Koyanagi) is rarely at home and is out trying to make things happen for himself. When he comes home we rarely engages with the family, sleeps, eats, and leaves again in search of his life.

The younger son Kenji (Played by Inowaki Kai), is smart in school and is unafraid to confront a teacher when the teacher attempts to embarrass him in front of the class. He turns the tables on the teacher and gains a great deal of notoriety in his class for his direct open truth telling. This sets the tone that he is smart and unafraid to find his way.

Megumi (Played by Kyoko Koizumi) is the dutiful wife and mother who keeps the home in place, is the model of consistency, and is always ready to have a nourishing meal ready for her family.

Lastly there is Ryuhei (Played by Teruyuki Kagawa) who is a company “Administrator” and finds himself unemployed when he is downsized.

At first he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t tell his wife thinking he will find something else quickly. He doesn’t and the shame of being unemployed and being offered menial jobs by Happy Work employment agency aren’t helping. He dresses each day and heads out to a park square where he gets a free meal along with other homeless and unemployed people. He stands patiently in long lines at the employment agency. His family knows nothing.

However, as his mental state deteriorates things begin to happen in the family. His oldest wants to join the US Army and fight in Iraq, the youngest learns to play the piano after being told no. His wife is questioning what is going on and gets caught up with a thief who attempts to rob their home. And Ryuhei, finds a bag of money while cleaning toilets in a mall.

These bizarre twists and turns, find a resting place in the youngest son’s piano recital.

I liked the overall pacing of this film because it was unrushed and it let the characters develop. Event the smaller characters get time to develop. Ryuhei’s high school friend, who is also unemployed, has his cell phone calling himself every 15 minutes to give the look of being important. Then there is the thief’s small role. It is fleshed out enough to give a sense of not being artificial. The scenes are full and beautifully shot.

Overall: This was a well developed film showing how losing a job can affect a whole family in a culture where face is important.