Young female attorney in training turns escort, the relationship between her and her client are not just based on sex.she does this to finance herself in law school.
Into this minefield saunters Starz's fascinating The Girlfriend Experience, which is not merely in conversation with questions of the male gaze, female autonomy, titillation, sex, and violence but quite literally about them.
Starz's new show offers the closest thing to a real-life superhero-cum-femme-fatale that we've seen in a very long time - and boy, is it a glorious thing.
The Girlfriend Experience is the perfect show to binge because it's a bit like a mosaic - each episode has these rewarding little moments but they're not self-contained, it's only when it starts to piece together does it tell an enriching story.
Keough's Christine is fascinatingly inscrutable, and the 26-year-old actress (Elvis's granddaughter, incidentally) carries the series with her chilly poise and enigmatic composure.
The Girlfriend Experience refuses to judge Christine, and thus defies you to judge its central thesis. It's an extremely cynical outlook -- the idea that every relationship... resembles a transaction. But on our most cynical days, doesn't that feel true.
As a self-contained story, The Girlfriend Experience is a chilly, cinematic treat, making shrewd use of a fascinating heroine to explore the loneliness of feigned intimacy.
