"The Last Days of Disco" (1998)

**This is the third and final review for Whit Stillman Week. Our tour began in New York, then hit Barcelona by way of Chicago, and now returns to New York by way of Motown. Enjoy the music, and the meaning, of Stillman's third and (by all accounts) final film.**

“The Last Days of Disco” is the final installment in Whit Stillman’s trilogy of films in the lives of terminally talkative young people. As with his earlier two films, “Metropolitan” and “Barcelona,” the world of the film is sadly lacking in role models and authority figures. Unlike the boys of Never Never Land, these characters are very clearly bent on becoming adults, even as they flail about rather piteously for some semblance of solid ground. More importantly, these films are in stark contrast to the more modern fantasy “The Breakfast Club.” This is not a film about self-discovery or self-actualization, but about coming-of-age in a more traditional sense: growing up, leaving childish things behind, grounding oneself in the received wisdom of one’s parents and one’s culture. The characters do not seek to come to terms with they were, but rather with who they ought to become.

Directed by Whit Stillman, starring Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny
Content warning: some nudity and scenes of sexuality, some language, some drug use

The questions of identity and happiness run deeply throughout the film, and appear even from the first scene. The female leads are established immediately: Alice and Charlotte are junior editor assistants who work at a book publishing company and go to disco clubs at night to meet men. Alice is soft-spoken but virtuous – the sort of girl who can easily get trampled underfoot – while Charlotte is the sort of girl who does the trampling. She later justifies herself to Alice: “I’m not so much of a bitch as I might seem.” We first meet the pair as Charlotte positively brutalizes Alice for a litany of flaws, ending with the revoltingly ironic criticism that her friend is “too critical.” Charlotte goes beyond mere inconsiderateness: she is endlessly self-justifying, and deliciously manipulative. We are also introduced to a slew of male characters: Jimmy, the ad-man perpetually trying to get his clients into the exclusive disco club; his friend, Des, second-in-command at the club who gets in trouble for letting him; Tom Platt, the initially charming environmental lawyer; and Josh, the Assistant District Attorney who yearns for Alice, and yearns for a chance to say “Book this clown” just once in his life.

Stillman's film is is deeply, even reflexively ironic; this trait is expressed not only in the screenplay, but even in the casting. Tom is played by Robert Sean Leonard, the charming actor who plays Neil Perry in “Dead Poet’s Society,” who sets up all the right expectations for us to look at him as Alice does: as a prospective match. Alice herself is played by Chloe Sevigny, very much against type considering the rest of her career. Charlotte is played by Kate Beckinsale, who had only a few years earlier played the eponymous lead in the BBC adaptation of “Emma,” a similarly manipulative but essentially good-natured lady who grows up over the course of that film. Then there are in-jokes, as Stillman marshals characters from previous films across the stage. Ted from “Barcelona” counsels Jimmy about jobs in Europe, and notes wryly that “Barcelona is beautiful, but in human terms it’s pretty cold” (echoing some of that film’s critics). Audrey from “Metropolitan” is seen from afar, rumored to be not only accomplished (“the youngest person ever to make editor”) but tremendously perceptive (Charlotte was interviewed by her, and worriedly comments that “she saw right through me.”) These are circles within circles, ironies embedded within, even if only apparent to a film critic.

Soon into the film, Alice is persuaded to rent a railroad apartment with Charlotte and another friend, Holly, despite the pair's obvious incompatibility. This turns out to have been a horrid idea, as there are only two bedrooms, and both of Alice’s roommates seem to be as horny as rabbits. Alice herself loses her virginity to the lawyer Tom shortly thereafter, consummating a years-long infatuation. She had let Charlotte’s cruel words fester, especially the ridicule that had been heaped on her chaste ideals and “cold” persona, the frigidity of a “kindergarten teacher” in a sexually liberated age. Tom loses his charm after treating her as a one-night stand, dismissing her to the morning “walk of shame,” casually noting that he had cheated on his current girlfriend by sleeping with Alice, and revealing that he’d given her both gonorrhea and herpes to boot. But in Stillman’s world even the most unsavory characters can still demonstrate insight, and Tom has both in spades: he reveals that he had been attracted to her precisely because of her purity, and had deplored the “slinky seductress” act she had used to land them both in bed.

This revelation leads Charlotte to confess a much earlier (and if such a thing be possible, much greater) sin: while they were roommates in college, Charlotte had seduced any boy who expressed an interest in Alice, so Alice would think herself unattractive and begin to regret her purity. This is a pivotal moment, not only for Alice’s character, but for our understanding of Charlotte. It is here that we realize that, despite her pretense of confidence (exulting over the crowded dance floor “We are in complete control”) Charlotte is deeply, almost pathologically insecure, and that she lashed out at Alice precisely because she acted as such a stark reminder of Charlotte’s own inadequacies. From this point forward, the film works at reclaiming romance and sexuality from the controlling grasp of 'sexual liberation' that Charlotte (and later Des) represent.

In the middle of the film, we are treated to a remarkably penetrating discussion between Alice and her competing love interests Josh and Des on the Disney film “Lady and the Tramp.” Alice notes that she had watched it with her niece and found it depressing. Charlotte is incredulous (“A children’s film about loveable dogs is depressing?”) but Josh agrees. He notes that Lady is an essentially vapid princess-figure, while the Tramp is a self-confessed chicken thief, a criminal. Josh does quite a intriguing bit of analysis: “The film programs young girls to be attracted to the bad element, so that fifteen years later, when that kind of boy does show up, their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why.” He continues, “The only sympathetic character is the Scotty dog, who genuinely cares about Lady” but is dismissed as obsolete.

Josh takes a breath, and Des pipes in: “But isn’t it clear that the moral of the story is that Tramp changed, that he gave up his chicken-thieving ways and becomes a part of this rather idyllic family with Lady in the end?” The conversation rages, but it’s clear from their vehemence that both men have more than puppies on their mind. Josh is making the case that he’s the best fit for Alice since he is already has a noble personality: “We can change our contexts but we can’t change ourselves.” Des is (rather desperately) working another angle: he admits he is a ‘bad boy’ right now, but implies that by Alice’s influence he might learn to become good.

By the penultimate scene, it’s clear who was right. Josh gets the girl, and Des flees the country when his boss is arrested. In the taxi to their airport, he states his intention to “turn over a new leaf in Spain” then asks aloud: “You know that line from Shakespeare, ‘To thine own self be true’? It’s premised on the idea that ‘thine own self’ is something good, being true to which is commendable. But what if ‘thine own self’ is not so good, what if it’s pretty bad? Wouldn’t be better not to be true to thine own self in that case?” He admits he’s “running like a rat” because that is who he is, but recognizes that it would be far better if he were not true to his nature. Contra the loveable misfits of “The Breakfast Club,” it is neither finding nor accepting who you are, but improving who you are through virtue, that leads to happiness. Whether in conveying the depths of human emotion and experience, reveling the subtleties of irony and language, or presenting insight into the very nature of things, "The Last Days of Disco" remains a truly magnificent film that I highly recommend.

One final note: "The Last Days of Disco" is not a film about plot or big events. The narrative is framed by events, not defined by them. Josh may be the A.D.A. responsible for investigating the disco club for money laundering and drugs, but the story remains on how that affects his friendship with Des and his pursuit of Alice's heart. Besides a brief moment where Josh finally gets to say "Book this clown!" in arresting the club's owner, the drug bust itself is largely relegated to the background. Nor is this a film about big characters or personalities. The final words of the film are giving to Des and Charlotte, talking about how their “big personalities” overshadow the more normal-sized personalities of Alice or Josh, or the “itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini-sized personality” of Jimmy. This may be true – they were the most interesting characters depicted, and Stillman couldn't have sustained an entire film populated solely with people like Alice -- but it is not to their credit. Like Jane Austen in “Mansfield Park,” Whit Stillman contrasts a soft-spoken but virtuous heroine with a more effervescent but also amoral competitor, and there is no contest. Austen’s novel serves as an antidote to her other novels, which tend to present sparkling wit and vivacity as the best virtues in a person. The same applies here, as "The Last Days of Disco" is an antidote to the entire genre of romantic comedy. Love is not about a couple's ability to dominate the silver screen, but in their degree of virtue, which makes for far less compelling drama. Even so, is there any question that Alice will be happier than Charlotte, when all is said and done?

"Barcelona" (1994)

**It's "Whit Stillman Week" at the Worthy of Note blog.  Enjoy this review of “Barcelona” which is rarer (but paradoxically considered more popular) than the other two films.**

“Barcelona” is the second of Whit Stillman’s three ‘Doomed Bourgeois in Love’ art-house films, and it is a very different sort of creature than “Metropolitan” or “The Last Days of Disco.” It is less sedentary than the former, less exuberant than the latter. Its themes are far removed from either of its fellows as well: the primary subject is beauty and love, as opposed to truth or virtue, though the film also touches peripheral questions of tradition, initiative and prudence.

Directed by Whit Stillman, starring Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman.
Content warning: some scenes with sexual content, mild language, and drug use.

The film begins with a montage of scenes that introduce us to the setting – Barcelona, the last days of the Cold War – and to the primary themes of the film. A suave European admires his lady in the mirror, complimenting her figure: “perfecto.” Trade fair girls, dressed in red, walk primly down the streets of Barcelona, admiring friends and glaring at strangers. A bomb blasts away the windows of an American library. The pursuit of beauty, the question of friendship and love, and the phenomenon of anti-Americanism – these are the key and recurring motifs.

We meet Ted, an introspective and soft-spoken salesman with the Illinois High-Speed Motorway Racing Company, whose inner monologue serves as our narrator. The other main character is his cousin Fred, a very outspoken American officer who is in Barcelona as the advance man for the Sixth Fleet. Fred is oblivious to others’ feelings, but remarkably sensitive to his own: he is both self-conscious and easily offended. Where Ted has trouble acting on thoughts and feelings, Fred has trouble not doing so. Fred is almost invariably impulsive. He takes other people’s stuff almost without a thought: “borrowing” the consul’s high-quality wine, and leaving IOUs for money taken from Ted’s safe at home. This gets him into significant trouble later on.

At the start of the film, Ted is recovering from a deep funk, ostensibly from a bad breakup with the sight-unseen Betty, but more accurately because he is essentially rootless. Tradition is key to understanding this film, as in “Metropolitan.” The early discussion about the Sexual Revolution and the promiscuity of Spanish girls touches this theme early on: “The Sexual Revolution really affected these girls. It turned their world upside down.” Fred offers the (all too common) counter-argument: “Don’t you think it’s possible that the world was upside down before, and now is right side up?” Ted pauses, and responds simply: “No, I don’t think that.”

Ted has tried to craft his own tradition, drawing from his sales background, from the literature of self-improvement (Franklin, Emerson, Carnegie, and Bettger) and from religious sources. In one scene of muted hilarity, Fred catches him dancing alone in his apartment to swing music while reading Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. “What are you, an adherent of some weird Glenn Miller based religious ceremony?” Ted responds: “No, Presbyterian.” “Presbyterian?” “Well, Protestant, then.” Fred’s girlfriend asks: “Protestant churches are like these?” Fred replies: “Pretty much.” Putting aside the veiled critique of Protestantism, the dialogue confirms that Ted is trying to identify with a tradition, even while remaining ignorant of what that tradition actually is.

The central statement of this theme comes immediately after this scene. Ted is railing against his cousin for spreading rumors among the trade fair girls of his sexual fetishism. Fred replies: “You are far weirder than someone into S&M. At least they have a tradition! You have no tradition. We have movies and books describing what S&M is about; I have nothing telling me what you are!” Ted is stung, but must recognize the truth behind the words. In an world “turned upside down” by sexual liberation and socialist influences, it is ironically those former bastions of tradition that are the least recognizable as such. In a society without faith, religion is as great an innovation as atheism would have been in the staunchly Catholic Middle Ages.

Moving on from the question of tradition, let us now treat the issue of love. After his break-up with Betty, Ted realizes that his infatuation with her beauty had ruined their potential friendship. In one of the more delightful lines of the film, he tells Fred: “I’m beginning to reconsider my attitude toward female beauty. I think it’s very bad.” Fred mocks him for this, and for his resolution to “only date plain or homely girls,” but that doesn’t stop Fred from using it to his own advantage later. When they stumble across girls en route to a party, Fred maneuvers to ride with the one who looks like she stepped out of a fairy tale. Ted is left with the two girls who look like hags or witches from said fairy tale. Yet he hits it off with one of them – Aurora – and she invites him to a concert.

The concert is a disappointment: Ted thought it would feature Lionel Hampton (and thus, jazz) but he had only misheard her say “Vinyl” Hampton (a cacophonous atonal mess). Moreover, the lady never even showed, but Ted manages to enjoy the evening with her replacement, Montserrat (who is, ironically, gorgeous). And then he falls in love with her.

There is a five-second snippet of film that really struck me. Ted narrates: “Everything was completely different now.” On screen, however, we only see Ted walking alone down the same semi-deserted street we had seen earlier in the film. Nothing had changed, but everything was different all the same. Profundity ensued.

The next scene reveals that perhaps Ted had merely fallen in love with the idea of Montserrat, the fantasy of looking into her eyes and seeing her soul. Certainly he is disconcerted the next morning when he learns that she tells him about her old flame Ramon, who had seduced her when she was 16… and then reveals that they never broke up, that she’s living with him though they consider it an ‘open relationship.’ At this discovery, Ted’s flabber is properly ghasted.

The two cousins soon meet Ramon at a party. He is a journalist, who holds that “all the old gods are dead… but in beauty” (specifically “of the female face and form”) “the memory of divinity remains.” We realize that it was he at the beginning of the film, examining a woman in a mirror and exclaiming “perfecto.” Yet that image itself contains the germ of criticism, that his ideal beauty is strangely flat: he will not admire a woman unless it is to a reflection, even when the woman is in front of him. He cannot withstand the three-dimensional complexity of a real female, and must reduce her to two dimensions before he recognizes her beauty.

Yet in addition to this strange naïveté, Ramon remains a smug playboy, who invents stories to fuel the anti-American fire. He speaks with hilarious ignorance of the “AFL-CIA,” and how the U.S. came to Europe to crush the progressive labor movement under the Marshall plan. He claimed that the recent USO bombing (depicted shortly before) had been a CIA pretext for the Sixth Fleet’s planned invasion of Barcelona, as the bombing of the “Maine” had heralded the Spanish-American War.

Ted is angered by Ramon, and tries to persuade Montserrat to leave him and move in with Ted. However, after a disastrous picnic in which Ted tries to explain U.S. foreign policy by analogy to ants and is spectacularly misunderstood, Montserrat leaves with Ramon and spends the night with him. It turns out that Fred had planted the seeds of their breakup by implying that Ted was looking to marry – which, for a sexually liberated girl in Spain, was just plain weird. “I think it is fascist for a man to immediately talk about marrying a woman he likes." Fred responses with some bemusement: “I don't think Ted is a fascist of the marrying type.”

Fred had also planted the seeds of his own undoing by lying to his girlfriend about working for the CIA, which she had passed on to Ramon and Ramon had published in his paper. At the same time, Ted discovers that his safe had been emptied, and he blames Fred (who he knew had taken money from it earlier). Fred is booted unceremoniously from the house, and goes to his girlfriend Marta’s house to find other accommodations. It turns out that she’s the cheating kleptomaniac herself – Fred finds her sleeping with another man, with envelopes of money stolen from Ted. Fred leaves her house distraught, repeating the self-improvement mantras he had earlier mocked, only to be shot by a motorcyclist on the way home.

Fred is taken to the hospital and remains in a coma for most of the rest of the film. Ted had heard that the sound of voices might speed recovery, and so maintains a constant vigil in Fred’s room, reading books aloud to him. At first, only Aurora shows up, with her friend Greta, to help care for Fred. When Marta finally does show up, it is to demand the money Fred had on him, which he had taken from her apartment… and so Ted learns that Marta had stolen the money, and Fred had been on his way to return it.

Over the course of the next few days and weeks, Ted and Greta grow quite close. At one point, he asks for her to leave so he could pray for Fred; she mishears him, however, and gets on her knees beside him to join him in prayer. The two bond over books, art, faith, and a shared loathing of Ramon. But the moment is lost when Montserrat arrives and makes her excuses.

Fred does recover: he wakes up to hear Ted praying for him, and exclaims “Give me a break!” The rest of the film fairly flies by: Ted anxiously awaits the arrival of the firm’s Chicago-based marketing manager, thinking he’ll be fired, only to learn that the CEO is dying and that Ted will be groomed to replace him. In the course of narrating his now-frequent trips to Chicago, Ted mentions his impending marriage, though the lady isn’t mentioned. The film settles back in Barcelona, on the wedding day. Fred reveals to Ted that he’s fallen in love with a girl, but is following Ted’s advice and taking is “really cool.” At that moment, Ramon appears and offers a faux-apology for the article that had gotten Fred shot, but does offer to make it up to Fred. Fred takes him on the offer, though we don’t see how.

The final scene is set in Chicago, where Ted, Fred and Dick (the marketing manager) are grilling hamburgers for the Spanish girls, who soon discover that American hamburgers are much better than the European kind. Ted gets in the final word on anti-Americanism: “See, we’re not such idiots.” However, our attention is mostly focused on the outcome of the love-and-beauty plot, which more closely resembles the end of a Shakespeare romantic comedy. Ted is now married to Greta! Fred is dating Montserrat – she was the girl he’d fallen for, and Fred must have asked Ramon to give her up so he could date her. Even Dick gets in the game, and is now dating Aurora!

Although… Dick is somewhat confused about something Aurora said, about leather underwear and weekends of fun. We realize that Ted had pranked Dick with the same story Fred had used much earlier on him. This is a bit of a cathartic moment, as we realize that Ted is finally a bit more confident and comfortable in his own shoes, while Fred has become a bit more reflective. Both cousins had learned from each other, and realized the virtues that the other’s personality had reflected. In Stillman’s world, the greatest victory is to learn those virtues that come least naturally to you, and by that calculation the cousins’ victories are great indeed.

“Barcelona” is a quick-paced film in which very little happens, at least by the standards of more conventional films. It is a profound contemplation of love and beauty… that is by the same token quite muted in its emotional impact. It is a mess of contradictions, yet cohesive despite them, or perhaps even because of them. Stillman is a master at making you think, and by that measure this is a brilliant film indeed.

Favorite quotes (besides the ones written above):
-    “Self-affirmation is great in theory, but whenever I try to put it in practice I get really depressed."
-    “The United States is like the ant farm of the world…. But no one in Europe can observe the ants directly.  They must rely on journalists and reporters to describe the ants. The problem is that those people all seem to hate ants.”
-    “Literary critics are always talking about the subtext, which seems to be the hidden meaning of the book. But no one talks about the meaning that isn’t hidden, the meaning that’s right on the surface… what do you call that?” “The text?” “Right, nobody talks about that."

"Metropolitan (1990)

**It's "Whit Stillman Week" at the Worthy of Note blog.  This week, I'll be reviewing three films by one of my favorite directors, Whit Stillman.  I hope you appreciate the reviews, and perhaps even the films.**

Whit Stillman is a rather obscure director, who produced a trifecta of films in the early 1990's that received critical acclaim and accolades, and shortly thereafter disappeared from public review. Yet those three films convey some of the most profound ideas ever treated on the silver screen. Stillman presents a world that is simultaneously elevated and oddly realistic. He treats humans as they actually are -- with small moments of epiphany, catharsis and barely discernible movements of the soul -- and humans as we wish they were -- with rich interplay of ideas and complete sentences. It is a challenge to even approach these films, let alone to appreciate them fully, but comprehension is immensely rewarding when it comes.

"Metropolitan," Stillman's Oscar-nominated first film (1990, Best Original Screenplay), presents the rather insular world of New York youth in the midst of the debutante ball season. They are the self-identified urban haute bourgeoisie, preppies for short, and the film is driven by their conversation. The movie begins as the members of the "Sally Fowler Rat Pack" leave a ball to head to the after-party, and stumble across the rather lonesome Tom. They insist he join them, and so they all head to Sally's apartment for an evening of upper class diversions and pretensions.

Each personality on display is a truly delicious mix of sincerity and facetiousness, insight and utter ignorance. Tom, the newcomer, serves as our eyes in this strange world, and we find him to be just as lost in the confusion as we are. On the other hand, Audrey, the shy and soft-spoken fixture of the group, serves as our emotional anchor to this world. Tom and Audrey seem to be almost polar opposites, but in their conversation and mutual respect we find the themes of this film.

The centerpiece of "Metropolitan" involves the concept of tradition. These are children on the verge of adulthood, but the adults themselves are almost entirely absent. Of the three adults who actually appear, two are relegated to wardrobe (Audrey's mother hems a dress, Tom's mother prompts him to return his tuxedo) while the third is a stranger who joins the group's conversation but is quickly shunted off to the side. Theirs is a world without authority, without role models, without tradition.

That is not to say that adults don't loom large in their conversation, even in absentia. Audrey worries that her father “believes himself to be a failure; but I don’t think he is!" Tom's parents had been divorced for several years, and though he initially considers himself "very close" to his father, he discovers his childhood toys dumped unceremoniously outside his father's old apartment and discovers that his father had moved across the country without telling him. It is a heartbreaking image -- a son no longer wanted by his father -- and made all the potent by our previous realization that Tom is truly lost without an anchor.

Tom can boast an active mind, but he has little understanding or appreciation of the past. For instance, he doesn't read actual literature, but prefers literary criticism (under Audrey's tutelage, he discovers the value of a good book by reading Jane Austen). Audrey, on the other hand, appreciates convention, even though she doesn't fully understand it.One of the girls proposes a game such that the loser must answer truthfully any question put to them. Audrey objects, saying that people don't go around revealing secrets for a reason, and that the game could be dangerous. Others respond that they can't think of why not, but Audrey replies: "You don't have to! Other people have, and that's why it became a convention." The game proceeds over her objections, and secrets are revealed, including one particularly hurtful to Audrey. Her own wounds vindicate her argument: it is wise to follow tradition, even when and especially when you can't think of the reasons for it.

By first impressions, Nick comes across as the antithesis of Audrey: a smug bastard who gives himself airs and lashes others with a biting wit. Over the course of the film, however, he grows closer to Tom and we see more and more of his true character. Nick is as quick to listen as he is to talk: he insults everyone, but is able to empathize to a unique degree. At one point, he persuades Tom to remain in the group by pointing out Audrey’s emotional vulnerability, and noting that she might be hurt by Tom’s departure. In a conversation about, of all things, detachable shirt collars, Nick comments that so many things are abandoned with time that ought not be. Tom replies, "You're obviously talking about a lot more than detachable collars."

Even the ending reinforces Nick's centrality to Tom's transformation. Nick is caught in a lie that damaged another preppie's reputation (though his excuse that it was "a half truth. A compilation. Like New York Magazine does!" actually appears accurate). Nick is excluded from the group after that point, and disappears to visit his (divorced) father and (evil) stepmother upstate. At the train station, he bids Tom farewell, but reveals that Tom is the last of the old guard, the one person who uniquely relates to the values Nick holds dear. That is the emotional turning point for Tom, and inspires him to fight for Audrey's honor when called upon in the next scene.

It turns out that Audrey didn't need defending, but had undergone a transformation of her own. Under the influence of Tom, she had learned to take initiative and act with prudential virtue: she flexed her allegiance to convention, but remained constant to virtue in practice. She had gone into the lair of an amorous preppie, to serve as a chaperone for her friend. She had in fact been defending the honor of another, when Tom shows up. In confusion, Tom notes that it was not what her hero Jane Austen would have done, but her only respond is to smile and acquiesce. She knows, and accepts, the distinction.

By the end of the film, the kids have grown up. From within their authority-less microcosm of modern society, they overcame the saccharine naïveté of their youth and latched onto a tradition and a mature mode of behavior. This is no "Peter Pan," no fantasy of eternal childishness. But nor is this "The Breakfast Club," in which adulthood is found through self-discovery. Indeed, defeating the misguided morals of the Brat Pack film may be considered at the heart of Stillman's work, particularly his final film "The Last Days of Disco." Rather, it is through a sense of tradition, of obligations to the social order, that the children find virtue and thus find happiness.

It is something of a joke that arthouse films are those in which nothing happens: they sometimes lack the sort of grand story or overarching plot for an audience to follow. Yet Stillman's films portray a much richer story than those of other films. Most are content to depict essentially archetypal characters reacting to events -- the stories occur externally, whether from changes in fortune, love or situation. The personalities rarely change as a result of events, and if they do the changes are generally superficial. Stillman depicts essentially real humans (if they are admittedly idealized conversationalists) who learn from minor events and grow as a result. The story occurs internally, and the movements of personality are complex and sometimes ineffable. If the results can be expressed at all, it can easily require an essay to fully comprehend. "Metropolitan" is one of those films that requires and rewards multiple viewing. Stillman treats film as a canvas for truth, not beauty, yet creates beauty through the characters developing their own humanity.

To purchase this film, check out Amazon.com:
Metropolitan - (The Criterion Collection)