The Girlfriend Experience

In the immortal words of "Hustle and Flow," it's hard out there for a pimp.

But if it's hard for a pimp, what must it be like for the pimped?

We get some idea in Steve Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience," which looks at the world of high-class hookers, and wonders if prostitution is the labor model for a new economy.

Its focus is Chelsea (Sasha Grey), a self-employed escort who advertises on the Internet and entertains international businessmen, local businessmen, movie producers when they're in Manhattan.

She has a live-in boyfriend — a personal trainer named Chris (Chris Santos) who's also out there hustling every day. He's schmoozing with Wall Street clients, trying to book extended-service contracts, shopping around with rival gyms for a better deal.

They're the new Willy Lomans, always selling, and the brand is them. The money is good, but the work is shabby, demeaning and unsteady, built on insincere and superficial connections with clients.

The econopmic collapse is on everybody's minds — Chelsea and Chris talk about investments incessantly, between themselves and among their clients.

The economy is on Soderbergh's mind, too. "The Girlfriend Experience" wonders if this is where capitalism ends — with a world of self-pimping, self-branding, do-it-yourselfers, at the mercy of the fates.

Or worse, the Internet, the virtual marketplace. Chelsea agrees to be vetted by an on-line rater of escorts, sort of a hooker Harry Knowles (actually movie critic Glenn Kenny), and gets knicked by the double-edged sword of the Web, where malice spreads as fast as hype.

In the new world order of "The Girlfriend Experience" everything is a transaction, and everybody's a critic.

Not everybody's an actor, though.

Sasha Grey is a porn star; Santos is an actual personal trainer. This is neo-realism, I guess. It used to be known as "amateur hour," and it's kind of a knock on actors, many of whom train for years to learn their craft.

Why not hire a beautician as your cinematographer, or a palm reader to write your screenplay?

You don't know how much you miss actors until you watch a movie with so many neophytes, who are for the most part stiff and unreadable.

And homely. A couple of journalists make cameos, and it isn't pretty. When I go to the movies, the last thing I want to see is someone who looks like us.