-By Erica Abeel

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The chameleonic Steven Soderbergh has long made a practice of surfing between big commercial projects and low-budget experiments. With The Girlfriend Experience, Soderbergh dons his art-film hat to create a fascinating portrait of Chelsea, a high-end Manhattan hooker who sells her clients, along with the usual, such add-ons as conversation, companionship and intimacy—in short, features we typically associate with a "real" romantic relationship. Along with simulating a girlfriend "experience," Chelsea also maintains a committed relationship with Chris (Chris Santos), a sports trainer who not only accepts her profession, but assures her, "You're the best at what you do." Chelsea is played with impassive self-confidence by Sasha Grey, a 21-year-old porn star, photographer, student of the French New Wave, and winner of the 2008 AVN Award for Best Oral Sex Scene, making her mainstream film debut. The rest of the cast are mostly non-professionals.

The Girlfriend Experience takes place in October 2008, with capitalism in crisis, Palin and Biden nattering from the tube, the word "maverick" getting a workout, and everyone fearful over the tanking economy. Gorgeously shot, the film mostly unspools in chic downtown Manhattan eateries—there's more restaurant porn than the usual variety—or the posh loft Chelsea can afford thanks to a trade that reaps (eat your hearts out, shleppers) $2,000 an hour. Yet because of the scrambled time sequence that Soderbergh uses to brilliant effect, the viewer must work to tease out a linear story. This is no burden once you understand that he wants us to process his movie as snapshot impressions rather than follow a narrative with all dots connected.

Essentially, we shadow Chelsea as she solicits advice from businesspeople (some of whom are clients) on how to achieve growth in a down market. "Keep it in gold," advises a Hassidic jeweler who's also, amusingly, a john. A sex connoisseur (film critic Glenn Kenny in an amusing turn) who runs an influential website promises Chelsea a rave review in exchange for a free sample—then reneges on the deal. Meanwhile, Chris finds that training hedge-fund guys is enriching the gym, but not him. And his own "girlfriend" experience with Chelsea has cooled, erupting in a crisis when Chelsea announces she's "met" someone with whom she'd like to spend the weekend.

Shifting between flashbacks and flash-forwards, the film also constantly comments on itself. The sex connoisseur "reviews" Chelsea's skills. Paralleling the action is an interview with Chelsea by a writer played by New York magazine reporter Mark Jacobson. And Chelsea herself records in a journal the minutest details of her encounters, including designer dresses and underwear. So along with capturing the life of a high-end call girl, the movie places mirrors throughout that reflect the filmmaker at work.

In an environment where everyone's hustling a product—whether it's jewelry, hedge funds or personal training—Soderbergh slyly proposes that Chelsea's is a business like any other (her product being her body), and she's an entrepreneur in the revered American tradition. As well, the film suggests that everything in the culture, including intimacy, can be commodified and packaged. Throughout, the improvised dialogue hilariously captures the goofiness of actual speech; the artifice of Girlfriend rings truer than life itself. In this mesmerizing chamber piece, Soderbergh has contrived a new style of narrative to convey a view of American culture at once outrageous and non-judgmental.