The advantage of seeing the Ashton Kutcher-starring Spread at Sundance, as opposed to in theaters down the road, isn’t just the fact that director David Mackenzie hasn’t yet been forced to neuter the film’s skintastic sex scenes (his 2003 Young Adam was shaved down for far less to get an R rating here in the States), but also the way it so nicely compliments a film that screened a few days later, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience. Neither movie quite works on its own, but as a pair, they are the yin to one another’s yang — portraits of a Hollywood hustler and high-class escort that, taken together, give a well-rounded picture of that world.
That’s the beauty of film festivals: Cramming thirty-odd films into a week’s time has a way of illuminating thematic connections between stories you’d almost certainly miss when screening them months apart at the megaplex. Autism, genocide, un-reciprocated love, sex-for-pay — all big themes at this year’s Sundance. And while neither Spread nor The Girlfriend Experience has much to say about those first few categories, they prove plenty revealing when it comes to understanding the realm of sex work.
“I don’t want to be arrogant, but I’m a very attractive man. I can’t help it, I just am,” says Ashton Kutcher, giving us his very best Batman voice as he delivers Spread’s husky opening narration. “Nicki” goes on explain how easily he can seduce some middle-aged woman into putting a roof over his head and designer clothes on his back, while Anne Heche takes the bait before our eyes. He’s just the accessory her otherwise perfect Hollywood Hills house needs, and she … well, she’s his meal ticket.
This is not the L.A. most Angelenos know, but some sort of fantasy version of it, the sort you might encounter in a Bret Easton Ellis novel or those Armani ads in which stylish ladies lounge among naked male models. When they have sex, it’s porn sex — every position imaginable, perfectly lit, with Heche crying out in “I’ve never had it this good” ecstasy. These montages might be laughable if they weren’t so frickin’ hot, and it’s not until Nicki’s inevitable turn for the worse that we find time to address important questions. Like, how is it that Kutcher can have no ass in jeans, and yet it can look so good scooching across the dining room table? (Heche, too, has never looked so scorching.)
Hollywood hates it when characters succeed without earning it, so it’s no surprise that Nicki’s free ride must eventually end. But even here, real-world rules do not apply — nor do the conventions of Hollywood Icarus stories, for that matter. If this were Midnight Cowboy, he’d be blowing Bob Balaban in a bathroom, but Spread seems to be a first among hustler movies in that it doesn’t equate turning a male trick with rock bottom. Nicki’s exploits are strictly straight, and the karmic lesson the film has in mind involves watching this cool-hearted narcissist fall for a woman he can’t actually have, played by Adventureland’s Margarita Levieva.
Spread is the very definition of a vanity project, one that allows Kutcher to demonstrate his acting chops and his chiseled abs at the same time (that cocky self-confidence is just a shield for the vulnerable child within, you see). Yet despite all its superficial pleasures, Spread never really reveals that inner soul. That’s what The Girlfriend Experience is for — sort of. Casting porn star Sasha Grey as a high-priced hooker, Soderbergh leaves the sex stuff out and focuses on the logistics of her world, from the business of improving her standing within that arena to maintaining a committed relationship. At the risk of sounding prurient, a little sex would have gone a long way in this film, which adheres to the prismatic editing style of Soderbergh’s more experimental projects but goes a good 40 minutes without giving us something to latch on to.
And though Grey is just a notch above Paris Hilton in the acting department, her thespian shortcomings actually serve to reinforce the enigma of her persona, as she keeps her true self hidden from clients and the audience alike. What matters is that Soderbergh seems interested in exploring the identity behind that façade — unlike Mackenzie, who celebrates the superficiality of Spread. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. Speaking in purely technical terms, The Girlfriend Experience is something of a mess (granted, it was a work-in-progress that screened at Sundance), and Spread is remarkably well constructed.
People may object to the shallowness of Mackenzie’s film, but it’s hard to fault the execution, which wraps with a poetic image: (spoiler alert) After returning to Heche’s house, this time as a delivery boy, Kutcher walks down the driveway as the electric gate swings closed behind him, shutting him out of that glamorous life. It’s an elegant metaphor, but not quite the end. Mackenzie has one more shot up his sleeve. This one we won’t spoil, except to say it expands the allegory well beyond Nicki’s situation to comment on L.A. at large — and for once, sex has nothing to do with it.
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