In the sci-fi thriller Westworld, customers paid small fortunes for the chance to blast android gunslingers away or sleep with animatronic prostitutes (distinguishable from humans only because of their slightly wonky hands. Hand jobs were probably on the house).
Here, fat cats are likewise sold an enticing fiction – a simulacra of intimacy from a New York escort with a face like a Botoxed kitten (real-life porn star Sasha Grey). Unlike most sex workers, Chelsea will kiss, cuddle, tousle their hair or do whatever it takes to replicate 'the girlfriend experience', for a price. (Disappointingly, there are no scenes where she starts shouting at them in the middle of Ikea.) Soderbergh's chilly, pseudo-documentary suggests there's a bigger price being paid on both sides.
Set during the run up to the 2008 Presidential election, with America sliding into recession, everybody here is hustling or being screwed over, psychically undone by a rapacious capitalism that has seen them transform themselves into branded fembots or soulless greed-borgs. In place of genuine conversation, clients can offer only short-term financial advice; while Chelsea's dream of bagging her very own Mr Big turns out to be a suppositious investment.
Yet there's the nagging feeling that we too are being sold a pup: sleekly stylish but numbingly repetitive slurry. Halfway through this reviewer's screening, proceedings shuddered to a premature climax and a little red face peered round the door. "Sorry" said the projectionist. "We've been showing the reels in the wrong order." Nobody had been any the wiser.
Here, fat cats are likewise sold an enticing fiction – a simulacra of intimacy from a New York escort with a face like a Botoxed kitten (real-life porn star Sasha Grey). Unlike most sex workers, Chelsea will kiss, cuddle, tousle their hair or do whatever it takes to replicate 'the girlfriend experience', for a price. (Disappointingly, there are no scenes where she starts shouting at them in the middle of Ikea.) Soderbergh's chilly, pseudo-documentary suggests there's a bigger price being paid on both sides.
Set during the run up to the 2008 Presidential election, with America sliding into recession, everybody here is hustling or being screwed over, psychically undone by a rapacious capitalism that has seen them transform themselves into branded fembots or soulless greed-borgs. In place of genuine conversation, clients can offer only short-term financial advice; while Chelsea's dream of bagging her very own Mr Big turns out to be a suppositious investment.
Yet there's the nagging feeling that we too are being sold a pup: sleekly stylish but numbingly repetitive slurry. Halfway through this reviewer's screening, proceedings shuddered to a premature climax and a little red face peered round the door. "Sorry" said the projectionist. "We've been showing the reels in the wrong order." Nobody had been any the wiser.