Los últimos días de la música disco

In the early 80's a group of friends interact around a Manhattan disco, desperate to climb the local social ladder. With an investigation in the disco's financial dealings and the end of disco approaching the friends attempt to carry on as normal.

Director Whit Stillman tends to go for comedies that look inward and have strong comedic dialogue that follow social observations and comment on different cultures and periods. However plot is never one of his major concerns and here is no different. The story here is less important that the period of disco which is the real focus. This may be a bit frustrating to some as the story doesn't seeming to have any one direction. However the characters and the dialogue will generally hold the interest sufficiently. Some of the script is a bit weak and the characters occasionally are a bit too unsympathetic but for the majority the sharp script compliments the characters.

The performances are good throughout - these socialites are not people I'd ever like to meet but they are funny from a distance. There is much to like here if you like this type of humour. But the story is almost non-existent and this is a slight problem.

Overall a clever, funny look at the life of a couple of party girls around the time disco started to suck. Not to everyone's taste and what's that credit sequence ending about? - is it a bit of fun or is it trying to say something?

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.

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.

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.

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.