The Last Days of Disco (1998)
Directed by Whit Stillman
Two young women and their friends spend spare time at an exclusive nightclub in 1980s New York.
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We first meet Des when he is assuaging the pain of his break-up with Nina (Jennifer Beals, wasted as nothing more than a cheeky reference to her own Flashdance-born disco credibility) by confessing to her his recently-acknowledged homosexuality.
Unlike the characters in " Saturday Night Fever ," who were basically just looking for a good time, these upwardly mobile characters are alert to the markers of social status.
So many times there are scenes in which characters say things that feel rehearsed, lines that they've cooked up and saved for the group, like in one diatribe about Disney's Lady and the Tramp.
Yet, Stillman's direction and dialogue here seem looser, more hip than in his previous outings: Two suitors vying for the same woman engage in a pointed deconstruction of Lady and the Tramp; an impromptu, after-hours dance of flirtation slyly moves from the living room to the bedroom.
They'll argue anything, as evidenced by a psychoanalytical quarrel over "Lady and the Tramp," in which one character opines that the movie encourages women to invest romantically in parolees and bad boys.
When they're not shaking their booties on the dance floor, the trendy friends can be found engaging in idle chatter about everything from the psycho-social ramifications of "Lady and the Tramp" to post-modern reinterpretations of Shakespearean tragedies, occasionally taking time out to vent the romantic and professional insecurities that have become a hallmark of Stillman characters.
Alice ( Chloe Sevigny , from " Kids ") is the smartest member of the crowd, and definitely the nicest.
The character with the best chance of moving on to living a good, happy and meaningful life is Alice, played by the always surprising Chloe Sevigny ( "Kids,"…
A strong ensemble piece, it features Chloe Sevigny ("Kids," "Palmetto" ) and Kate Beckinsale ( "Cold Comfort Farm," "Shooting Fish" ) as two recent Hampshire College grads who have moved to Manhattan and into a life of sleepy publishing house day jobs and late nights at their favorite disco haunts.
Sevigny, a talented newcomer first seen in a tragic role in 1995's Kids, is the only flesh-and-blood character amid the cardboard.
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In retrospect, the components of Whit Stillman's 1990s trilogy (Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco) acquire their resonance from observing the quiet passing of ephemeral things: Metropolitan celebrates and mourns the specific character of a place and time, youthful associations and crushes, a toolkit of values, even if those values are not exactly shared by, say, housewives in Duluth and auto mechanics in Albuquerque.
Depending on the current cultural climate at any time since their original release, movies like Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco, recently issued on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection , could seem like antiquated, elitist gabfests or literate, barbed critiques.
Stillman would develop greater facility with the camera in later films (especially The Last Days Of Disco ), but he’s never topped Metropolitan’s plethora of quotable lines, expertly delivered by a superb ensemble of unknowns (most of whom have stayed that way).
It's interesting that Whit Stillman, the writer-director-producer of Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994) would make a movie that features disco dancing.
The Last Days of Disco isn't a bad satire, but it isn't up to the level of Metropolitan or Barcelona, Stillman's previous two films.
The movie is the latest sociological romance by Whit Stillman (" Metropolitan "' " Barcelona "), who nails his characters with perfectly heard dialogue and laconic satire.
The middle film in writer-director Whit Stillman’s self-described trilogy – it was preceded by 1990’s Metropolitan (for which Stillman deservedly earned a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination) and followed by 1998’s The Last Days of Disco – Barcelona combines romance, comedy, philosophy and politics into one tantalizing package.
His fantastic debut Metropolitan was one of the best films of 1990 and his third film The Last Days of Disco is the flipside of Paul Thomas Anderson ’s Boogie Nights in evoking a misunderstood era.
Barcelona (1994) is the second of a trilogy of films that Stillman refers to as his Comedies of Mannerlessness (The first was 1990’s Metropolitan, the third was 1998’s The Last Days of Disco).
Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan"/"The Last Days of Disco") is the writer, director and producer of this semi-autobiographical lightweight romantic comedy about the cultural differences between Spain and America, as seen through the eyes of two tarnished mismatched American preppies.
It's interesting that Whit Stillman, the writer-director-producer of Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994) would make a movie that features disco dancing.
The Last Days of Disco isn't a bad satire, but it isn't up to the level of Metropolitan or Barcelona, Stillman's previous two films.
Unappealing characters, however much they impair a movie's capacity to entertain, cannot of themselves make the film unworthy; Robert Altman portrayed a slightly older but equally self-important and chatterboxy demimonde in Short Cuts, which nonetheless proved a satisfying and provocative picture.
The other male characters in the film include Josh (Matt Keeslar), an assistant district attorney who looks and acts like Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club; Dan (Matthew Ross), a co-worker of Alice and Charlotte's who scorns disco culture until he starts dating Holly and actually visits a club; and Tom (Robert Sean Leonard), an almost absurdly under-written character on whom Alice tries her best Mae West imitation only to have Tom put her down for so obviously departing from her natural personality.
A third roommate, Holly, is played by Tara Subkoff, Alison Folland's friend in All Over Me, but Stillman never spends any time introducing us to her or making her concerns or even her personality seem all that relevant to the goings-on.