![]() ![]() ![]() It’s the DC storyline that shares most of its DNA with the first season, taking place in similarly stark surroundings, from cold, ultra-modern hotels to clinical conference rooms. But Christine’s story will remain enigmatically untouched (second season showrunners, there’s a lesson here), and instead, we’re following Anna (Louisa Krause), Erica (Anna Friel) and Bria (Carmen Ejogo).Įach week will consist of two half-hour segments: one that follows the Washington-based Anna and Erica and the other focusing on Bria in New Mexico. It’s a brave move and, given the audaciously minimalist nature of the first season, many other shows would choose to fill in gaps that don’t necessarily need filling. Photograph: John Golden BrittĮighteen months on and the show returns, but despite the strong critical reaction to the first run and to Keough, Kerrigan and Seimetz have decided to replace her with three new leads whose stories play out in two unconnected timelines. It was like watching a horror film without any tangible horror.Ĭarmen Ejogo in The Girlfriend Experience. The writing was sparse, the direction cold and the queasy sound design filled with a lingering sense of dread. Riley Keough, in a Golden Globe-nominated performance, played the fascinatingly unknowable Christine, a woman questioning whether she might be a sociopath, pushing her sexual limits as a form of therapy, shaking herself to see if there’s anything inside. Soderbergh recruited the indie duo Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz to take the concept and run with it, transforming a simple logline into a first season that worked best as a chilly, creepily bewitching character study. It feels even less necessary given recent horrifying tales of Hollywood harassment, abuse and reductive objectification.īut The Girlfriend Experience isn’t a show about titillation. While female sexuality has been explored in depth in the last year, thanks to Insecure, Better Things and Fleabag, there still remains an industry standard of oversexualization. The show, like the film, focuses on an escort who offers the titular high-end service, meaning that a client would receive the illusion of a partner rather than a more transactional sexual encounter, and in a time of increased opportunities for women on television, something about it seemed at best regressive and at worst exploitative. Taking Steven Soderbergh’s middling 2009 drama The Girlfriend Experience as the jump-off for a more expansive small-screen iteration was hardly a thrilling proposition when it was revealed on Starz last year. ![]()
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January 2023
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