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I was a disco queen and what I loved about this movie is that it captured the innocence and naivete of the time along with everyone trying to be what they thought others thought was "cool". No other movie really captures that aspect of the disco days so perfectly. it was a time where everyone was looking for love, walking into a disco hoping all eyes were on them but being naive in regards to relationships. So banal, ridiculous conversations happened constantly while trying to impress or create desire. Then you went home with either the person you had the most chemistry with or whoever you were left with at the end of the night. Generally the sex sucked and not in a good way(ah that was a touch of Charlotte I think). This movie perfectly hit on all those things and takes me back many years. The only thing it didn't have was the absolute joy and abandon many people felt while dancing. There was such a freedom and love of life. Ah well, nothing's perfect, not even disco.

"The Last Days of Disco" follows a group of newly minted adults in the New York of the early 1980s. They're affluent, and recent products of Ivy League educations but they really don't have much of a clue as to what adulthood is all about. They're groping, but they're not sure for what. They all have jobs, but their lives revolve around a posh disco where they mate, mingle, and talk. There's not much of a plot; "The Last Days of Disco" is mostly a series of conversions. But the conversions are wonderful. Whit Stillman's dialogue is a delight; he nails what its like during those first years of adulthood when the life of the group is replaced by a mature individuality. The ensemble cast is wonderful to watch, not overplaying their characters. I recommend this movie very highly

Several people have commented that the conversations in the club would have been impossible due to the loud disco music. I was a regular bar goer in the 1970s and 80s and though some rock and roll bars were deafening, most dance clubs were not as "loud" as they are today. Conversation was a possibility back then believe it or not. I think that is one retro idea that should be revived.

As for the rest of the film, I liked it. I did not think all of the elements worked however. For example, I would have liked to have seen more proof that disco was on its way out. Having guys walk around in shirts that proclaimed "Disco Sucks" and footage of a "death to disco" rally at a baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox were both evident in 1979 when that game was played. I watched that game. Incidentally, the Tigers won by forfeit as the Chicago field became a disaster area. I would have liked to have heard more of the change in music. We did hear some Blondie, but this film was supposed to take place in the early 80s. I think the song "Bette Davis Eyes" would have been a good choice.

If you are looking for a celebration of Disco, this film isn't it. It does have some realistic portrayals of people who might have been involved in the scene. I watched the film because I disliked the whole disco scene and thought that a film showing it dying may be interesting and it did not disappoint me. If you are looking for a plot, this film doesn't have it. Not all of it worked and I was scratching my head a few times, but I think this film may become more enjoyable with a second viewing. I gave it a 7.

`You have no idea what men think about women's breasts,' womaniser Des McGrath (Christopher Eigeman) pleads. No, not a rehash of Boogie Nights, but the third instalment, following Metropolitan and Barcelona, of Whitman's `yuppie' odyssey.

This New York yarn centres on publishing assistants Charlotte (flawless snotty American accent by Kate Beckinsale) and her best friend/biggest rival Alice (Chloe Sevigny). Bitchy Charlotte - `In physical terms, I'm cuter than you, but you're much nicer than I am,' - and Alice fall in with a parade of self-absorbed fellows in pullovers and drab ties. The `verbal' action between this set of intellectual folk takes place at a ludicrous dance palace in the very early 80s, with the `disco movement' decaying and Reagan's soul-devouring materialism taking hold.

In the main these are disagreeable people, but as much as you urge yourself to loathe them, you can't quite do it. Whitman's wildly self-indulgent and witty script (`Do you think the neurological effects of caffeine are similar to that of cocaine?') makes them impossible to ignore and eventually their awfulness becomes disturbingly compelling. A bit like Friends, only without dumb Joey and flaky Phoebe.

Although, aesthetically and visually Whitman's film doesn't quite ring true – clothing looks too 90s and they'd never be able to talk so much in a club – the dialogue is fresh and chances are you'll be grinning from here to Bolivia when the "Love Train" rolls through the subway at the end.

• Ben Walsh

1) There is no action in this movie. If you need *something*, then avoid this movie like the plague. And while one may think to themself, "dayam, those actresses look fine", there are no gratuitous skin shots. Its not a movie like "Honey", where you turn off the volume and just stare at Jessica Alba.

2) Its not really about the End of Disco (despite the title). The soon to be dead Disco era is a BACKDROP for the theme of the movie. Casablanca was not about WW II. It was a romance movie, and the War was a backdrop. No one bitches about the authenticity of the airplanes, uniforms, historical details of the politics or legal procedures, or portrayal of the Moroccan culture. Yes, I wish the filmmaker was a bit more zealous about period dress and music. Oh well. And while there are reminiscent touches, its not a movie who's focus is dedicated to capturing the Disco period. If what you want is an homage to Disco, then you won't like this movie.

3) It IS a "Coming of Age" movie. It is about vapid, just-out-of-college Americans starting out in the real world. The movie mostly skewers them, but I can't help but feel a bit of nostalgia and loss for a period of life that will never come back to me (early twentysomething). I strongly suggest you avoid the movie if you're under 35. You do not need to have lived through the disco period to appreciate the movie, but you do need to be an old fogey. Definitely a movie for adults, in the non-NC17 way.

4) The actors put on superlative performances. They were portraying vapid, witless, bland, soon to be full-blown yuppies. The time period is perfect for reflecting on the contrast of soon-to-be-over perceptions of life and the world from youth to early adulthood. You can almost see their worldview evolve within the one(?) year time period of the movie. There's nothing sucky about the acting. The characters are mostly sucky people; that's why they seem wooden, vapid, and lame. (And Kate Beckinsale does an AWESOME American accent; because she's British, and there isn't a hint of her native tongue.) Yes, their dancing seems lame, because the general public are generally lame dancers. People did not break out like John Travolta on the dance floor every night. Its not a movie about dancing.

5) One should be appreciating the dialogue from a detached distance, and be struck by its wit and humor. Not living through these people in a first person perspective. This is for people who can appreciate reading James Joyce, Harold Pinter, or Evelyn Waugh, or any great novelist/playwright who doesn't beat you over the head (usually with a voice-over) with the meaning of every aspect of a scene. (Apologies if these writers aren't good examples; I'm having a problem recalling an ideal choice.) If the movie seems to drift and be aimless, its because life is not a continuous series of epiphanies, and this is not a typical Hollywood feature. If you need something more obvious, you WON'T like this movie.

Its actually a bit hard to like this movie, but I do. I have met people who have lived through the Disco era and waxed poetic like Josh towards the end of the movie. They're actually yearning for the illusions of their youth; which is kind of what the movie is about.

Over the years, I'd heard good things about this... although looking at some of the "worst film ever" reviews here I may have not grasped the full reaction.

Having decided to dive in (prompted by tangential discussion of Richard Beckinsale's brilliance in Rising Damp!), I was not expecting the comedy highlight of the film to be a discussion on the semiotics of "Lady and the Tramp", or the tone to be so all-over-the-place. Yes, there are drugs, and a bit of violence and sex, but mostly everything and everyone seemed so *clean* - apart from their "railroad apartment", which was quite scuzzy. As others have noted, too many of the men felt interchangeable, the music sounded very quiet and the benign office environment implausible (maybe that's the present speaking?) - but there was enough plot to keep me engaged. Not recommended, as such, but OK.

It's the very early 80s in NYC. Alice Kinnon (Chloë Sevigny) and Charlotte Pingress (Kate Beckinsale) are recent graduates working at a publishing house as low pay readers. Dan Powers (Matt Ross) is their annoying co-worker and Holly (Tara Subkoff) is their quiet roommate. Jimmy Steinway (Mackenzie Astin) tries to bring his elderly client into the club. His club manager friend Des McGrath (Chris Eigeman) throws him out. Tom Platt (Robert Sean Leonard) is a charming environmental lawyer who gets together with Alice. They and others spend the nights in and out of the disco club.

The cast of characters is a bit too large. I wish Whit Stillman could trim a few out of the group. Alice and Charlotte are quite a pair. They're not real friends but rather opposites stuck together. Their relationship is fascinating. There are fun bits coming from Charlotte like Des' gay mouth. Chris Eigeman continues to be the best of the Stillman disciples. Dan is probably a necessary evil. I would like this movie more if the membership in the group is more stable and restricted to fewer people.

except my memory lane was in Dallas, not New York City. I just fell in love with this film and its characters, characters who could only exist as they did and together in that very late disco period.

Actually, Stillman got some things wrong, and maybe he did so on purpose. "Disco Destruction Night", occurred in July 1979, and he's got it happening "in the very early 80s" at about the mid point of the film. Since disco was completely dead - and its death was like that of one struck down suddenly by a heart attack - by the fall of 1980, he is probably aware of the anachronisms here, and just spun the tale as it was to prevent himself from basically making a yuppie version of Saturday Night Fever. Stillman must have been acutely aware of not wanting to be that film because, did you notice the film is devoid of even one song by the brothers Gibb, who are practically emblematic of the disco era?

The film's focus is on a group of recent college grads in their early to mid 20's. You could call them friends but they are more like acquaintances, and they all frequent one particular disco. The center of the film is the pair of - I guess you'd call them friends - Alice and Charlotte. Alice is a quiet girl. I'd almost call her an Amish girl in sequined clothes and platform shoes by night, business attire and sensible shoes for her job in publishing by day. Charlotte is a mess. She went to the same college as Alice, and she seems to seek out a connection with Alice much more than vice versa, even though Charlotte is the outgoing one. But she is constantly putting Alice down, steering her the wrong way in her relationships, and blurting things out that embarrass Alice. Charlotte seems like the kind of person who just wants other people around to make her feel better about herself. Among the men in the group we have an ad man who must be able to get clients into the club or he'll be fired, a lawyer, and an assistant manager at the club who avoids commitment by telling women he is gay.

In short, there is something unlikable about all of these people except maybe Alice, yet I found them fascinating. It's like "The Asphalt Jungle" (minus the crime) meets "Friends".

All of these people are college educated, some at the Ivy Leagues, yet they are underpaid, and in the case of Charlotte and Alice, doing jobs that in any other city would go to high school grads. They mate, decouple with varying amounts of pain and drama, are living their youth at a time when they believe "The H" - herpes - is the worst thing that can happen to you, and when disco dies, proclaim that it just CAN'T be dead. It's not disco they are mourning, it is their passing from one phase of their youth to a more mature state, although I doubt they even realize it yet. A youth lived in the most exciting city in the world in a time of unique cultural acceptance and sexual freedom, and now they are forced to march on to a more constrained existence. Their post college adolescence is over.

My favorite parts - Robert Sean Leonard as an environmental lawyer who seems sensitive at first yet denies his sexual partners certain vital "need to know" information, a hilarious deconstruction of Lady and the Tramp as only Harvard grads could do it, and the closing credits superimposed on what could almost be called a music video featuring "Love Train" that sends the film out on a joyful hopeful note.

Just a few words about the plot - there really is none. If you are looking for an action picture look elsewhere. But if you like films filled with great dialogue I highly suggest it.

USA conversationalist Whit Stillman's third feature, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO trades on his personal experiences of NYC's disco-scene (salted with Harvard-disparaging quips) in the early 80s, ebulliently scrutinizing a coterie of freshly out-of-college yuppie-wannabes, who are habitually congregated in their common haunt, an unconscionably popular nightstand, meantime, their love life and career path wax and wane variably, signposted by its title when their disco days are unexpectedly being put paid to, time to grown up when reality bites.

Alice (Sevigny), a self-contained sylph dithering about making the right decisions - don't be judgmental, be sexy, always at the bidding of her more popular but stuck-up friend Charlotte (a fresh-faced Beckinsale, looking ghastly under the slap), both girls work in the same publishing house and mingle with the likes of Tom (Leonard), a spiffy environmental lawyer, Jimmy (Astin), an enterprising adman, No.1 and No.2 prospects on Alice's infatuation list, then there are Josh (Keeslar), a young assistant district attorney and Des (Eigeman), a college-dropout who becomes one of the managers of the said nightclub, both take a fancy on the quiet but intelligent Alice.

Gender study and sex politics are thrown into the mix where philandering and mendacity (using "gay excuse" to break off relationships), gender double standards (you are a titillating slut, I will not forfeit our chance of a one-night-stand, but afterwards, we are finished.), treacherous friendship (Beckingsale is totally in her wheelhouse as the paradigm of the so called "green tea bitch", avant la lettre), even venereal disease, collectively roil the dynamism of their pairing-off games, to somewhat wacky but consistently buoyant vibes, however, a byplay relative of an undercover police investigation is only patchily introduced as a frivolous plot device, fails to emphasize what is at stake, and the manic-depressive Josh, accorded with a forthright quirkiness and spontaneous elocution, potentially the most fascinating character among the posse, is wasted by the wooden, stilted performance from the blandly handsome Keeslar, whose recapitulation of the film's tenor near the finish-line comes off as a deleterious overkill.

However, club-scene hasn't died out, has been continuing luring new generations of hipsters and scenesters with theme-specific variations to this day, over three decades later, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is, to each their own, a sparkling eulogy of Whitman's own youthful abandon and disillusion, and on a sociological level, a zeitgeist-reflecting conversation piece that thankfully doesn't belie its maker's undue conceit and guile.

Back in '98, it was "The Last Days of Disco" soundtrack I'd bought, trying to get into the genre (just look at the song list, a better disco primer there ain't). If a CD can wear out, it would've been that one. Fantastic album.

As for the rest of the movie - which I just got around to actually seeing . . . well it's not that I need a plot to enjoy a movie, just that the dialogue used to carry this one emanated from characters I really didn't like. Credit Whit Stillman's ear for dialogue, but there's also a vapidity to these people (ivy league educated but they've got no damn sense). It really was the music that kept me watching this. Although it seems the only thing that can sour a good Bernard Williams bassline is a proceeding Blondie song (agh!).

One other thing about this; that can't be what they thought the early '80s looked like. Outside of the workplace scenes, these actors could've stepped onto the streets of 1998 with no crowd reactions. It's bizarre.

5/10

Chloe Sevigny, the independent film princess, lands in the great emerald city by the sea. The final moments of the disco period are about to expire and she must dispose of her wickedly evil roommate, Kate Beckinsale. The disco is the epicenter of the film, the "Oz" if you will, where the wizard appears to control the music and lights of the city. Whit Stillman produces movies as often as the Olympics come around, but I like the tone he achieves here. Check-out the eighties publishing world depicted in the film. What's missing? No computers. The office seems less cluttered and more soothing to the creative spirit. There's an off-the-cuff reference to J.D. Salinger and his different works. There are many such random references scattered through the frames of the film. The director keeps you on your toes. The highlight of the film arrives on an iron horse by means of an impromptu dance sequence. The extemporaneous dance number spills out onto the subway platform and beyond the station. Nice touch.

If you like 70s music than this is the film for you. Other than those BeeGees classics that were in Saturday Night Fever you'll hear just about every popular song going during the era. The producers must have spent a fortune getting the rights for the soundtracks.

The plot is something like St.Elmo's Fire and set about 10 years earlier than the release in 1998. Some affluent 20 somethings two women, Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale are headed for a night on the town. They get involved with four guys at one point or another Chris Eigerman, Matt Keeslar, Mackenzie Astin, and Robert Sean Leonard. All them newly minted adults who haven't quite figured it out yet.

Eigerman's character was interesting. He's a general all around fixer/handyman at the club whose job is in danger because the right kind who might not fit into the elite it caters to keep getting in. He's really rather clueless but lovable in a strange way.

David Thornton who is a semi-regular on Law And Order, SVU as a sleazy defense attorney plays the equally sleazy club owner. He's got his hands in all kinds of illegality and Eigerman is the cause of his downfall when he shows Matt Keeslar what Thornton is up to. Keeslar has the job to make it stick and unwittingly brings about the end of this Studio 54 type club.

I did kind of like the ending. You could almost that Irving Berlin song from another era, The Song Is Ended, but the melody lingers on in that surreal finale on a subway.

For you aging hustle dancers The Last Days Of Disco is for you.

Well, before you see this, ask yourself if you either: a) want to engorge yourself with lengthy witty banter, or b) see a Wasp-y version of the weaving of people in and out of relationships like Seinfeld or Woody Allen but with a bigger cast? If your answer is yes, this is your movie. If not, not.

This movie is FAR more like Stillman's others (Metropolitan and Barcelona) than like anything you've seen about disco - which is simply the background. I was surprised that these yuppie characters were so freely admitted to Studio 54 (the set of the film), but perhaps it indicates disco's waning popularity by the early 1980s.

I enjoyed it very much - but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

The film is not completely hopeless, but it gives an impression of being written inattentively and in a hurry, or as though all the people should understand the script as its creator does. To begin with, it has a very vague exposition of characters. The female characters are represented very generally and only famous actresses help to understand them better. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about male characters. Firstly, these are no name actors. Of course even such actors can play well and be memorable, but these actors look very alike and it's hard to get accustomed to them and understand who is who and what their names are. Badly written script makes it even worse. I had a situation when almost in the end of the movie one male character kissed a girl and 5 minutes later I couldn't remember which one it was. It worth mentioning that usually I have no such problems with other films and the only similar situations happened while watching movies from 40's, where all the women looked identically. So this male cast and their storylines are badly managed. This interferes with full understanding of these characters and the plot itself.

The other problem is the disco itself. The film does not show us 80's, it shows late 90's during which it was shot. If any adjustments were made, they were made superficially. Also the movie depicts disco as something extremely dull and doesn't convey its spirit.

In the end I can say that the director/writer wanted to tell and show us something, and partially he succeeded, but this directing and writing is not fully professional. Even considering that it is not a blockbuster or otherwise popular film, these two aspects aren't performed on the decent level. Various art house films are easier to watch than The Last Days of Disco.

This film follows the lives of several 20-something working professionals in New York City in the early 80s as they pursue their careers and variable romantic attachments. The lack of a strong plot is largely compensated for by superb performances, rich dialogue and well-drawn characters.

Having seen this film all the way back when I was still in high school and now seeing it again more than twenty years later, I have a pretty different take on it. Obviously when I was 17, most of the film's concepts of young adulthood flew way over my head. But years later, I understand the characters and their personalities so so so much better that I can't help but marvel at how well this film holds up. Behaviors and quirks stand out to me so much better now.

In some ways, life for young single people in NYC has not changed. In others, it has changed dramatically. The wide-eyed belief in an innumerable possibilities, the endless buffet of choices and yet the cock-eyed arrogance that you know everything you need to know when you're only in your 20s. In terms of the quality of life, the desperate need for roommates to counteract a woefully low salary at an entry level job is still a fact of life, perhaps even more so today. The grittiness of the club scene is one thing that feels a bit quaint in this film. Even in my youth, the more inclusive nature of the club scene began to disappear and to give way to more exclusive venues where ironically the white collar professionals would fit right in and others would not. In the period that is portrayed here, the NYC nightlife scene might as well be in another country because it was before hip hop came along and radically altered how young people interacted.

But one thing that rings eternal is young people exploring as many options as they can before they eventually gravitate toward their natural preferences and become real adults. In that regard, this is still quite an insightful film to watch, as the characters who are narcissistic and capricious tend to go one direction while those who are mild-mannered and unselfish tend to go in another. It's exciting to watch when you're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and then alternately amusing and nostalgia-inducing when you're my age. Gladly recommended to anyone approaching adulthood or already there.

Another winner from Whit Stillman! This is a very clever, well-written film in the Eric Bogosian or Hal Hartley style of a play for the screen. This film really does feel like theater in many ways, especially the funny and clever, tightly written dialogue.

Superb performance by almost the entire cast (the one exception being McKenzie Astin, who was fairly awful, but was barely onscreen so it was shrugable), raised the film to a level above its potential. Kate Beckinsale was the perfect bitch, so annoying that I wanted to pull her out of the screen and shake her repeatedly;) Christopher Eigeman nearly stole the show as Des, he played the character perfectly, his voice and tone always on edge, the defensiveness and womanizing, the stories he told, all a brilliant package. But Chloë Sevigny more than held her own, with her best performance that I've ever seen...everything from her line release to her body language stuck out; she became Alice.

This film is a definite must see...a great soundtrack, great sets, brilliant writing and better acting. It's a bit long, some scenes feel unnecessary, and at times he seems to be over-hammering his point, but Stillman has still provided us with a near-masterpiece, 8/1.

Surprisingly incisive, literate dialogue-- good "period" details-- but the characters just aren't terribly sympathetic, which may be the point, but, well...

Third chronologically, but second logically of a divine trilogy, this look at the cusp between youth and adulthood in 80s New York shows Whit Stillman's Metropolitan wasn't just a flash in the pan, and 'Barcelona' didn't signal a slow decline. Gorgeous characterisation with magic Chloë Sevigny shining from her every frame. And if, like me, you though disco music was crass, this elevates it to another plane... A film for all ages.

I came across this flick in dvd form at an estate yard sale, and now I know why the guy let me have it for nothing. First, I love "talky" movies, where there is little in the way of action and a lot in the way of convo and human relationships. But this film... none of the characters have distinct voices at all. It's as though the writer just took their own thoughts and musings and assigned different sections of the same tedious diatribe to different characters. It doesn't sound or feel like actual conversation - more like one person talking out of many mouths. Classic narcissistic authorship. All in all it's borderline unwatchable, and a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the time and place it pretends to represent.

Sevigny plays disco waif among shallow upper crust boys (and girls). Sort of a disco soap opera that has an overall depressing undertone. Despite the mediocre movie, Sevigny's performance is really memorable. Nice soundtrack.

With the '70s nostalgia sweeping the country in 1997-98, there were several movies to carry it along, including "The Last Days of Disco". This one portrays some young women in the Me Decade trying to establish relationships and wondering where their lives will lead. I personally thought that Chloe Sevigny carried the movie (then again, I might just be thinking that because of her role in "Boys Don't Cry"). But she and Kate Beckinsale do a great job with the roles. I've never seen any of Whit Stillman's other movies, but if this is any indication, his others must be impressive. Certainly one that I recommend.

So does "spurting" count?

Well I hate to have to give such a low rating to a movie filled with (mostly) good actors. However, I can't ignore the fact that the audio mix was terrible, 90% of the shots in the nightclub were too bright, the general vibe of the time period being depicted was wrong, the dialog sounded like it was from the 1930s (complete with numerous lengthy monologues), the street fashion was almost completely inaccurate, and that pretty much every male character in the film talked in almost the exact same manner.

There were at least five points in this movie at which I said to myself, "What the hell is this film?" This is one seriously bizarre production. It's almost like if Woody Allen was asked to write and direct a double-episode of "Friends". It's clear that either the writer was never actually there in the late 1970s and early 1980s or they have no memory of it and had to reconstruct their 'experiences' based on watching old black and white movies.

Ultimately, if you want to watch a warm and fuzzy film filled with lengthy overly-formal dialog then this is the one to see. On the other hand, if you want an accurate depiction of the late 1970s and early 1980s, you're better off watching "That 70s Show" and the movie "The Informers". I can safely say that these two recommendations are in fact accurate to the time-periods they depict. And for something a bit more surreal yet indicative of the attitude of the early 80s, check out "Flash Dance" and "Purple Rain".

Over and out.