However, towards the end of the film, he is allowed to soften up, loosen up, and enjoy the ride. Driven by his own yearning for Audrey, he cloaks direct confrontation in the pyschobabble of philosophical theory and practice. Taylor Nichols, as fellow debutante and aspiring philosopher Charlie Black, serves as the main foil to Tom. It’s captivating to watch someone conforming wild emotion to the stoic reserve expected from her station. A standout sequence for her character involves her silently crying during a Christmas Eve mass. Externalized by a trend-bucking bob haircut, Audrey is a progressive thinker and romantic that hasn’t yet lost her idealism.īesides Tom and Nick, she’s the one shining light of real human connection throughout the film. As Tom’s love interest, Audrey, the little-known actress Carolyn Farina seems to be the only other member aware of the fading heyday of their class. The rest of the cast is filled out with various faces who have not had as much career success as Eigeman. METROPOLITAN was Eigeman’s first feature-film project, and he rode the wave of the film’s success to a respectable career in well-known independent 90’s films. His haunted eyes convey a vision of the future where their kind has no place among the real movers and shakers of the world- much like how the decadence of the French aristocracy led to their downfall in the Revolution. Chris Eigeman, who would later go on to feature prominently in Noah Baumbach’s early work, is undeniably magnetic as the Rat Pack’s chief cynic. With a shock of red hair, Clements simmers with anxious energy as he navigates unfamiliar social terrain. To Stillman’s credit, each of the performers is believable as discontented, over-privileged, and over-educated. This particular subset of New York’s social demographic isn’t particularly known for bold action, so the story is inherently heavy on dialogue and light on visual panache. The cast, comprised of young, fresh faces, deliver effective (yet complacent) performances. Along the way, hearts are broken and realizations are made, but in the end, it’s clear that the elite class will continue to prattle on in their opulent mansions in the sky, just as they always have.īefore there was GOSSIP GIRL, there was METROPOLITAN– a more sober and sedated satire of Manhattan’s old-money class.

A self-described socialist and “radical”, he comes off as a curiosity to a foppish, nihilistic young man named Nick (Chris Eigeman), who invites him to join his group of friends for their nightly Debutante season after-parties.ĭubbed the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, this group of upper-crust teenagers spend the majority of the film debating their increasing irrelevance as a social group and the value of their archaic traditions. The story of METROPOLITAN concerns Tom (Edward Clements), a young Ivy League man who (much like Stillman was himself) is an impoverished debutante caught between the cultural divide of Manhattan’s East and West sides. First up was 1990’s METROPOLITAN, a polarizing, sedated work that netted Stillman an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. I felt I could really dive into his canon objectively without preconceived notions or nostalgic memories of films already-seen. I was particularly excited about studying Stillman, seeing as I had never seen any of his films before. Having previously studied the work of Baumbach and Anderson for the purposes of this project, I was interested in studying the man who served as their inspiration. I had heard his name bandied about in film discussions, but Criterion’s recent Blu-Ray upgrades of his 1990 debut film, METROPOLITAN, and 1998’s THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO piqued my curiosity. I was, for the most part, unaware of Stillman’s existence as a filmmaker until somewhat recently. That man is Whit Stillman, and despite his relatively short filmography, he has built up a respectable niche for himself as the chief chronicler of the “urban haute bourgeoisie”. While Anderson and Baumbach have experienced career-defining success from this storytelling model, they draw inspiration from the urban pioneer that paved the paths they currently tread. Usually hailing from affluent section of Manhattan and old-money families, their characters are depicted as out of touch and increasingly irrelevant in a diversifying world.

Directors like Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach are well-known for their depictions of a particular subset of Americans: the East Coast elite.

The last days of disco