"The Girlfriend Experience" is about as awkward a film as one might expect when intruding into the life of a high-end call girl for five days.

But that’s precisely the way it’s supposed to feel.

Set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, the film centers on Chelsea, an upscale Manhattan call girl meeting the challenges of her boyfriend, her clients, and her work.

Director Steven Soderbergh tapped real life porn star Sasha Grey to carry the authenticity of his film. Throughout her encounters with clients, a reporter, friends, a financial adviser and potential pimps Chelsea remains an enigma, someone who everyone wants to be closer to, but never truly will – whether or not they pay her 2K-an-hour rate.

Grey walks a fine line in her performance, she’s tasked with being just intriguing enough to keep our attention and distant to the point of turning off any real emotional attachments. As Chelsea, she slips into this mode so easily that even her “real” boyfriend, Chris (played by Chris Santos), seems to be constantly held at a distance.

Shot in a cinema verite-style that compliments the nature of the story, one of the most non-sequitur aspects of the film is sending cameras to follow parts of Chris’ journey on a never-quite-explained trip to Las Vegas. While the scenes are meant to delay the emotional payoff of Chelsea’s journey, they never seem to serve a purpose unto themselves.

The setting of the run-up to the Presidential election, while much-touted in most of the movie’s press materials, serves primarily as a source of dialogue for several interactions and to give the film a sense of immediacy without adding to the character arc.

For Grey’s performance alone, the movie is worth catching, but Soderbergh’s deft hand that keeps her at a distance makes it hard-to-forget.

"The Girlfriend Experience" is rated R for sexual content, nudity and language. It’s playing through Thursday at Salem Cinema.