NEW YORK – The Girlfriend Experience, Steven Sodebergh’s RED-shot lo-budge experimental starring adult super-geek Sasha Grey as a cool high-end call girl, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday night.

The movie screened at Sundance this year, and reviews from last night suggest that the ever-eclectic Soderbergh made few changes on the way from Idaho to New York, where the 77 minute flick has been appreciatively received.

“The essence of cine Soderbergh is the application of the filmmaker’s intelligence to a specific problem. In Che, it was the nature of a historical actor; in The Girlfriend Experience, it’s the nature of acting,” J. Hoberman wrote in the Village Voice. “No less than Che, or even the Ocean’s Eleven movies, The Girlfriend Experience is a film about its own making. It’s also a hall of mirrors. Are we watching an authentic sacred monster playing the part of a cute little chippie—or is it vice versa? (Imagine one performer embodying both the Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider roles in Last Tango in Paris.) Grey isn’t the first porn actress to go straight, but she may be the first to allegorize her own situation—projecting an on-screen self-confidence that’s indistinguishable from pathos.”

Kirk Hunnicut of the Hollywood Reporter, though slightly irritated with what he felt was the film’s uneven pace and structure, nonetheless called it “impressionistic and provocative” and a kind of performance art.

Ronnie Sheib in the Variety review, though, thought “Soderbergh’s complex, never-gimmicky shuffling of time subtly fragments the narrative to reveal the characters’ untoward depths of self-delusion,” and said the “chamber piece” should “delight Soderbergh fans and niche auds. Sundance-sneaked (in rough cut) and officially preeming at Tribeca before a May 22 opening, this arthouse gem finds the helmer in top, and truly topical, form.”

Photos: Sasha Grey at the Tribeca premiere (above) and with costar Chris Santos and director Steven Soderbergh (below)