Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Gatsby for the 90s, June 15, 2000
This 1990 film by writer-director Whit Stillman is wonderfully refreshing and intelligent. It is sure to please audiences with a taste for the avant-garde or those just looking for something a little different.The story follows a group of upper-crust New York preppies during the Christmas debutante season. These are kids for whom black-tie balls at the Plaza Hotel and charming little soirees in Park Avenue apartments are serious matters. They are the UHB-"urban haute bourgeoisie"-a social circle carrying out traditions so anachronistic as to seem alien; traditions, in fact, which were outdated before these characters were even born. A middle class outsider and budding socialist named Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) happens into this elite group and briefly livens things up. He shocks them with his leftist rhetoric (he is a devotee of Fourier) and anti-deb outlook, but they nonetheless find themselves drawn to him. Tom finds a kindred spirit in the cynically fatalistic Nick (Christopher Eigeman). Nick is the most self-aware member of the inner circle and he provides comic relief with his devastating ongoing critique of their lives and behavior. Stillman's characters seem to have everything going for them. They are bright and educated and come from very wealthy families. We learn, though, that privilege is both their blessing and their curse. These children of status are destined to always remain in the shadow of their very successful parents. As one of them puts it, "We're doomed to failure." We come to realize that even though they are well-off in many ways, they still must struggle with the same insecurities and fears as the rest of us. The characters in "Metropolitan" are the kind of people that F. Scott Fitzgerald knew so well. Indeed, if Fitzgerald had been a director rather than a writer, this is the type of film he might have made. It is intelligent and literate with dialogue that almost crackles with its liveliness and wit. "Metropolitan" gives us a rare glimpse into a world that scarcely exists anymore, if it ever really did. It is a real treasure.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All that's missing is Noel Coward., December 11, 2006
This movie glistens like a piece of old Belleek. Whether in the subtle gold of an off the shoulder evening gown, or in the vast expanse of a deep, plush, ivory colored carpet, nearly every frame shimmers with champagne like iridescence.
And gold is an apt visual metaphor, particularly when juxtaposed against the black satin of a tuxedo lapel or the wintry Manhattan night scape, for a world seemingly vanishing right before our eyes--a world too sleek, too soigné, too genteel to survive the steam roller of galloping blue-jeaned egalitarianism.
That the denizens of this vanishing breed, as depicted in the film, are themselves, insecure late adolescents, make its departure all the more poignant.
"This is probably the last Deb season..." one of them observes resignedly, "...because of the stock market, the economy, Everything..." Yes, everything...the huge smothering subject that hovers all around the plot itself and from which its characters are only temporarily insulated.
In particular, the focus here is on a group of privileged Eastern Seaboard collegians enjoying the Christmas holidays in a series of Park Avenue, "after dance parties," in which they loll about and ruefully anticipate the disappearance of their youth, their success, and their kind.
That they are one at the same time cerebral, immature, literate, prankish, frightened, polished, well educated but vulnerable and inexperienced, puts them well outside the troglodyte teens that inhabit the deconstructionist zoo in most post 1970 films, (with the exception of a unfortunate and mis-placed "strip poker" sequence which violates the picture's otherwise overall mood.)
Indeed, they seem to exist outside their own time, belonging rather to that group Cecil Beaton dubbed "the smart young things" from the 1920's, in his "The Glass of Fashion." Certainly, one imagines them far more comfortable with Ivor Novello than Mick Jagger. And like many "smart sets" they seem rather a closed corporation.
Until that is, into their number unexpectedly arrives a young man of reduced circumstances, Tom Townsend, (Edward Clements) who by virtue of his sincerity and intelligence, is invited to "sup at their table--on a borrowed pass" so to speak. His romantic misadventures with the beguiling Audrey Rouget(Carolyn Farina)forms the cynosure of the charmingly fragile plot.
Audrey and Tom stand out from the pack, in their earnestess and integrity, though it is assuredly Nick, (Christopher Eigeman) their figurehead and chief quip master who is the groups' un-elected leader. As interpreted by Mr. Eigeman, Nick is the embodiment of the cocktail fueled, cigarette wielding bon vivant--trenchant, self absorbed, far from virtuous, and with a ready verbal arrow that never misses its target. He is George Sander's heir presumptive.
Nick's observations are worth the whole price of admission as they say, whether it be bemoaning the Protestant Reformation, the social climbing Surrealists, or the scarcity of detachable collars.
Since the film's short, bouffant,cocktail dresses and automobiles unmistakably place the film in very late modernity--the Reagan era in fact, and long after the Ray Anthony's Orchestra, top hatted milieu it depicts, we cannot fail to miss the film's core observation--the parallel evanescence of the groups' own social connections, as placed against the simultaneous collapse of civilized life as we once knew it.
As the Christmas season ends, so do the nightly gatherings, and each character is forced to come to terms with impermanence--their own and everything else's. In a melancholy bar scene, an older man warns the youngsters of disappointment ahead, "I'm not destitute but...it's all so mediocre."
That Producer/Director Whit Stillman manages to fuse the personal with the sociological in such and intriguing and entrancing way is a testament to the penetration of his vision.
And, lest we miss the point, he includes a cunning shot of a significant book left on bedside table--none other than Spengler's "Decline of the West."
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Doomed Preppies in Love, February 10, 2006
The early `90s marked the emergence of two independent filmmakers who were seen as possible heirs to Woody Allen's cinematic legacy: Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming) and Whit Stillman. Stillman, in particular, has often been cited in the same breath as Allen's films. They both mine the same social strata - affluent, Upper East Side New Yorkers - for comedy. Stillman's debut, Metropolitan, is his most Allen-esque, right down to the simple opening credits sequence accompanied by jazz music. Stillman's characters, like Allen's, also speak witty dialogue loaded with literary references. However, this is where the similarities begin and end. In Allen's films, he presents upper class characters that are narcissistic and self-absorbed while Stillman tends to gently parody these qualities.
Even though their group is known as the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, Nick is their unofficial leader dominating many of the conversations with his caustic wit. Tom is seen as something of an intriguing outsider (at one point, Nick notices that he lives on the Upper West Side). He's not as rich as the others but is able to hold his own intellectually. Charlie (Nichols) doesn't like Tom because he has a thing for Audrey and knows that she fancies this social interloper. Throughout it all, Nick is Tom's way into the group and lays out the social rules for him (he shows him the proper etiquette and fashion tips). Tom is obviously the audience surrogate and along with him, we are immersed in this rarified social milieu.
Metropolitan takes place during the Christmas holidays and depicts the inevitable decline of the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, much as Charlie theories early on in the film, confirming his fears of the decline of their generation. He even attempts to define it and frets that they are doomed to decline financially, lamenting the inevitable demise of the Preppie class. He also comes up with the term "Urban Haute Bourgeoisie" or UHB (pronounced "UB") to describe his class but, in reality, it is just another word for Preppie. Initially, the characters in the movie may seem pretentious but I believe that Stillman wants us to see past this façade to the anxiety-ridden personas that lie beneath as typified by Charlie.
There is a certain timeless quality to the movie. There is no real indicator of the time period it is set in and this makes it the most enduring of Stillman's three films - Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco - that form a loose knit trilogy of doomed Preppies in love. With Metropolitan, he has created a fully realized world with well-written characters that he has real affection for and this makes for an enjoyable movie.
There is an audio commentary by Stillman, editor Christopher Tellefsen and actors Christopher Eigeman and Taylor Nichols. Stillman talks about working on a small budget and points out examples in the film where they cut costs. Eigeman and Nichols recall their impressions of working on what was their feature film debut. This is a relaxed, low-key track full of intelligent observations as you would expect from people responsible for a smart movie.
"Outtakes" features a montage of raw footage that was not used and includes blown line readings, several kinds of reaction shots for a given scene and a tribute to the film's line producer who died in 1992.
There are two clips of "Alternate Casting" with optional commentary by Stillman. In one segment we see Will Kempe as Nick Smith who Stillman says was up for the role with Eigeman but he felt that ultimately, Kempe did not have the right kind of chemistry with Edward Clements that Eigeman did.
Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.
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