Review of The Girlfriend Experience
The Girlfriend Experience is a 2-season web series that was released in 2016. It gained popularity soon as it was a reinterpretation of Steven Soderbergh’s critically acclaimed movie of the same name that was released in 2009. The series has an IMDB rating of 7.1 on 10.
Overview
The series explores the relationships between private escorts and their clients. The series focusses on the life of Christine, an escort who provides her clients “the girlfriend experience” while she also lives another life as a young attorney in training.
Cast: Riley Keough, Paul Sparks, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Briony Glassco, Tobi Bamtefa, Daniel Betts, Frank Dillane, Julia Goldani Telles
Review
What makes this series a standout is a unique plot like no other series on television. The intimate extreme story is centred on the life of a young woman, Christine, who discovers a new life within the world of transactional relationships. Compared to the movies, the series is quite compelling and has no clutter.
Be it Christine’s life, her spacious apartments, her visits to high-class hotels or restaurants, everything seems polished and high-end. Riley Keough fits perfectly into the role while matching the aesthetics of the show. Excellent cliff hangers throughout the show will definitely keep you hooked on to it. But make sure you don’t watch all of the episodes in one go, as it might have an impact on your mood.
Riley has managed to pull off the double life pretty well, as she carries the weight of the show on her shoulder. She’s captivating in both her avatars, whether it’s Christine or her alias Chelsea. While Christine is more serious and rarely smiles, Chelsea, on the other hand, is lively and animated; and Riley manages to play both the characters with finesse. To add to that, the minute details are beautifully executed, where Christine has her hair always in an updo and Chelsea lets her hair down. It is the perfect reminder of the old societal norms that a woman’s beauty lies in her hair.
Although there is a danger to Christine’s new calling of becoming a well-known attorney, she still continues being an escort. The creators want the audience to know how can a person legitimately be attracted to being an escort and the kind of impact it has on them. The plot is immaculate with Christine trying to balance both her lives.
After 18 months on, season 2 returned with 14 episodes and new faces. Season 2 focusses on the lives of two individuals — Erica, a finance director who somehow gets wrapped into the girlfriend experience services and Bria, another girlfriend experience provider in New Mexico. The episodes are in pairs, with one story of Erica and the other of Bria. The storyline is absolutely balanced with Erica’s story being full of cold relationships while Bria’s story focussing on her new home with a tenderness absent from Erica’s story.
All in all, The Girlfriend Experience offers an extremely cynical outlook on how every relationship at the end is nothing but similar to a transaction. Thus, making it worth the watch. You can catch all the episodes of both seasons of the web series on Lionsgate Play.
