I don't normally write movie reviews, or even talk about movies in any sort of detail, but after seeing this earlier tonight I feel absolutely compelled to warn people about what they're about to see.
The movie revolves around the emotionally vapid and thoroughly uninteresting escort, Christine, played by Sasha Grey. We don't really know anything about her other than the fact that she believes in some kind of pseudoscience that apparently *isn't* astrology (though it holds that people's birthdays alone provide determinate information about their personality...), and, well, that's she's an escort. She also has a boyfriend, Chris, who works as a personal trainer and reveals himself to be the most emotionally connected person in the film. This isn't saying much. His acting is merely passable, and his character is just above tolerable.
Anyway, we watch Christine go on date after date of painfully awkward and forced conversation, and then we hear a voice-over reading of her diary where we're told about the ensuing sexual encounter (or lack thereof).
Three encounters stand out:
One is the guy we are introduced to at the beginning of the film. He's the least slovenly and most sensitive, but he ends up preferring the service of another escort. Christine feels slightly rejected. That's it. No more development there.
Another noteworthy (relatively speaking) encounter is between her and some guy from L.A. with a wife and kids. He's in New York temporarily on a job related task, and he ends up deciding to stay there for the weekend so he can have some extra time with Christine. Christine is so excited to spend the weekend with this man whose birth date is indicative of compatibility that she essentially sabotages her relationship with Chris. The guy rents her a car and tells her to meet him at a hotel, but he has a change of heart after video chatting with his kids. He bails, she's sad, and Chris apparently still stays with her after the mishap.
Finally, there's a repulsive porn mogul or pimp of some sort who essentially propositions Christine to service him in exchange for a good review and some "career opportunities." It's implied he makes her do some degrading things involving a Q-tip, but we don't really know what or why. We just know that he sucks and writes a scathing review of her. The review reads like a description of the movie with a few genital details thrown in.... Christine, the review says, represents the "nadir of passion," and is marked by a "flat affect." Perhaps this movie is more reflexive than it aims to be.
There's not too much going on when the film is focused on Christine's emotional pettiness or the creepiness of her clients. Every fifteen minutes or so we are bombarded with the drunken fraternizing of what seems to be Chris and four CEO types on an personal jet. They have obnoxious and inarticulate exchanges about the economy (the typical 'Obama... money-out-of-my-pockets... where's it coming from?' type stuff) and relationships. It's either this or boring snippets of informal business meetings. The cinematography is tasteful at times, but there are scenes striving for artfulness that just result in frustrating angles and too many shadows. The cinematography doesn't make or break this film movie, though. The awkward dialog, lack of direction, and frigid characters are what kill it.
Sure, this movie's supposed to be rife with social commentary, but this commentary doesn't go very far beyond the truism that the wealthy want to stay wealthy, or that lots of people do bad things to get ahead. We see that the financial worries of the elite are often marked by the same half-baked fiscal libertarianism and vague economic metaphors of your average small town Joe. Or maybe that wasn't his point. I don't really know. I just know that we're subjected to about a total of thirty minutes of muddled conversations about the economy that usually conclude that investing in gold is your safest bet, and things are only going downhill from here. The film ends *SPOILER ALERT* with a cheap shot at the financial elite -- we get a caricatured "capitalist Jew" telling Christine to vote for McCain right before he prematurely ejaculates at her aloof and hesitant embrace. Deep stuff.
The movie revolves around the emotionally vapid and thoroughly uninteresting escort, Christine, played by Sasha Grey. We don't really know anything about her other than the fact that she believes in some kind of pseudoscience that apparently *isn't* astrology (though it holds that people's birthdays alone provide determinate information about their personality...), and, well, that's she's an escort. She also has a boyfriend, Chris, who works as a personal trainer and reveals himself to be the most emotionally connected person in the film. This isn't saying much. His acting is merely passable, and his character is just above tolerable.
Anyway, we watch Christine go on date after date of painfully awkward and forced conversation, and then we hear a voice-over reading of her diary where we're told about the ensuing sexual encounter (or lack thereof).
Three encounters stand out:
One is the guy we are introduced to at the beginning of the film. He's the least slovenly and most sensitive, but he ends up preferring the service of another escort. Christine feels slightly rejected. That's it. No more development there.
Another noteworthy (relatively speaking) encounter is between her and some guy from L.A. with a wife and kids. He's in New York temporarily on a job related task, and he ends up deciding to stay there for the weekend so he can have some extra time with Christine. Christine is so excited to spend the weekend with this man whose birth date is indicative of compatibility that she essentially sabotages her relationship with Chris. The guy rents her a car and tells her to meet him at a hotel, but he has a change of heart after video chatting with his kids. He bails, she's sad, and Chris apparently still stays with her after the mishap.
Finally, there's a repulsive porn mogul or pimp of some sort who essentially propositions Christine to service him in exchange for a good review and some "career opportunities." It's implied he makes her do some degrading things involving a Q-tip, but we don't really know what or why. We just know that he sucks and writes a scathing review of her. The review reads like a description of the movie with a few genital details thrown in.... Christine, the review says, represents the "nadir of passion," and is marked by a "flat affect." Perhaps this movie is more reflexive than it aims to be.
There's not too much going on when the film is focused on Christine's emotional pettiness or the creepiness of her clients. Every fifteen minutes or so we are bombarded with the drunken fraternizing of what seems to be Chris and four CEO types on an personal jet. They have obnoxious and inarticulate exchanges about the economy (the typical 'Obama... money-out-of-my-pockets... where's it coming from?' type stuff) and relationships. It's either this or boring snippets of informal business meetings. The cinematography is tasteful at times, but there are scenes striving for artfulness that just result in frustrating angles and too many shadows. The cinematography doesn't make or break this film movie, though. The awkward dialog, lack of direction, and frigid characters are what kill it.
Sure, this movie's supposed to be rife with social commentary, but this commentary doesn't go very far beyond the truism that the wealthy want to stay wealthy, or that lots of people do bad things to get ahead. We see that the financial worries of the elite are often marked by the same half-baked fiscal libertarianism and vague economic metaphors of your average small town Joe. Or maybe that wasn't his point. I don't really know. I just know that we're subjected to about a total of thirty minutes of muddled conversations about the economy that usually conclude that investing in gold is your safest bet, and things are only going downhill from here. The film ends *SPOILER ALERT* with a cheap shot at the financial elite -- we get a caricatured "capitalist Jew" telling Christine to vote for McCain right before he prematurely ejaculates at her aloof and hesitant embrace. Deep stuff.