Metropolitan

METROPOLITAN has really aged well - I first saw this when it was released, and watching again a few days ago, it really stands up as something unique. Episodic and without much real plot - the only real forward motion in the film is to be found in the ending, which feels a little contrived, and is my only real gripe with this film.

At my first viewing, I didn't really want to like these characters, who all seem from another world - rich, young and good looking, carrying on through elaborate, banal, pseudo-intellectual conversations with a deadly confidence about their place in the world. But over the course of the film it becomes apparent that their secure perch in the upper echelons of the American elite isn't 100% set in stone, as an outsider is able to penetrate this rarefied universe, and manages to hold his own quite well, arousing suspicions (and battling shame over his own proletarian roots, and his battle between his own free-thinking idealism and his aggressive social climbing ambitions), but also making genuine friends among the cute young blue-bloods. Of course he isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and neither is anyone else in here, and they all know it even when behaving otherwise, which greatly humanizes these otherwise not-exactly-pleasant characters. On the strength of the dialog, METROPOLITAN has become something of a cult classic, and deservedly so.

In a strange way, METROPOLITAN is almost a companion piece to the surreal and disturbing documentary GREY GARDENS - both are centered upon characters from the well-bred, wealthy elite of American old-$ society. As METROPOLITAN insinuated that the security, intellect, status and wealth of its' characters isn't as rock-solid as the characters would like everyone to think, GREY GARDENS illustrates, in lurid detail just how psychologically destabilizing a precipitous fall from such a lofty, but artificial world would be - you could easily see an aged variant of one of METROPOLITAN's character's ending up like the Edies from GREY GARDENS.

The probable best from the very non-prolific Stilman, I strongly recommend.

Centering on the lives of wealthy, well-educated young women "coming out" as debutantes and on the equally wealthy, well-educated young men who attend deb parties as the girls' escorts, Whit Stillman's feature directing debut sparkles with incredible dialogue that always wavers between savage wit and heartfelt poignancy. Few who have seen the picture will forget its hilarious dissections of New York social classes, its elegant sense of vocabulary, or its caustic self-awareness. The thing I enjoy the most about Metropolitan (and the two subsequent films Stillman has made), however, is the verisimilitude with which the characters are rendered. I grew up far from the money and privilege of Metropolitan's inhabitants, but I could so easily relate to their fears, desires, and insecurities -- because Stillman never forgets to keep these kids human.

I was prepared to hate this movie, even though or because I was one of the extras in it. Most of us were dazed by the mere fact that we were picked for background because we apparently looked upscale, since most of us were sporadically employed actors living in creepy lofts with too many unregistered roommates, creepier basement illegal sublets, and (in my case) an all-female SRO populated equally by out-of-town career girls and old biddies on pension, many of whom were well along the process of losing their marbles. Since I was also being stalked by a genuine upper-class twit at the time of shooting, I had little sympathy for the characters of a project that I assumed (like many other extras) was a student film helmed by a trust baby.

When the film came out, it upended all these expectations. I *knew* these characters: the outsider who doesn't know if his longing to fit in means he's selling out, the snotty guy who's actually kind of sweet, the "nice" girl who's never properly appreciated, and the cool girl who takes her power for granted. Even the way the girls try to support shy Audrey over slinky interloper Serena is true to type. They may be stereotypes, but you've met them too, regardless of your socio-economic level. The pseudo-intellectual dialogue didn't make them less sympathetic, it made them more so--they are *desperate* to impress. Well who, at that age, isn't? Some people do it with clothes or athletic achievements: these kids do it with words. As for the pony-tailed possible sociopath, he reminded me painfully of my stalker--now I knew that these jerks who think they can get away with anything don't just target little peasants like me. They endanger their own class too.

Everything that people have criticized in this film, the stilted delivery, the awkwardness, is what makes it wonderful. It captures perfectly the struggle to be accepted. You could point out that Stillman does a certain amount of this in "Barcelona" and "Disco" also, but then do we ever really outgrow the need to be accepted? Only the settings change.

While every other social and ethnic group is deemed off-limits to filmmakers, one remains a target for cheap laughs: Preppies. From "Animal House" and "Caddyshack" ("the slobs versus the snobs") to John Hughes and Savage Steve Holland, to more serious fare like "Six Degrees Of Separation," filmmakers have availed themselves of this last group of people they can target with a broad brush of easy scorn.

Which is one reason why Whit Stillman's debut film, "Metropolitan," is so refreshing. By taking a more sympathetic, inside look at a group of affluent East Side Manhattanites home from college, Stillman makes a case for an underlying core of goodness beneath the Thurston-and-Lovey veneers.

Making the foray into their world for us is Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), literally and figuratively a red-headed stepchild in this world of privilege, having little money (his big secret, which he guards carefully with the help of mass transit, is that he lives on the West Side) and a defensiveness about his place in high society he manifests by adopting the stance of a disapproving socialist, though in reality he is more than a little too shallow to feel anything that deeply.

The truth of Townsend is immediately obvious to members of an upscale social set that call themselves the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, but they take him in anyway because he knows their world and seems like a good audience. Running the group is Nick Smith, who you can call a snob, as well as sexist, obnoxious, and of late, rather weird. Just don't call him tiresome, or you'll get an argument.

Nick is also a good guy beneath his preppie bluster, a fellow who champions Tom and breaks down Tom's highminded resistance to joining their circle with snarky logic ("You'd rather stay at home and worry about the less fortunate, but has it ever occurred to you you ARE the less fortunate?") He also has real values he honors, sometimes at no small risk to his nose. Chris Eigeman plays him with such panache you understand why Stillman kept using him in his movies; Eigeman's delivery is a thing of wonder, especially with lines that sound a mite too polished for instant expression. He can speak of his stepmother as "a woman of untrammeled malevolence" and make it sound like the most natural phrase in the world.

Another familiar face from Stillman's movies is Taylor Nichols, who plays Charlie Black, who when we first see him is stumbling through an explanation of why he believes in God and you do, too, even if you don't know it, and later on offers his own alternative definition of the preppie elite as the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie, i.e. the UHB. "Is our language so impoverished that we have to resort to acronyms of French phrases?" a woman asks.

Charlie's more of a preppie snob in his dislike for Tom, though as Tom trifles mildly with the affections of a woman in their circle, Audrey Rouget (Carolyn Farina), we understand Charlie's attitude. The movie is most fun as a platform for Eigeman and Nichols' pithy one-liners, and there are many great ones, but the complex relationship between Audrey and Tom is what gives the movie its plot and much of its interest.

It's bizarre how Clements and Farina vanished from the movie scene right after making their accomplished twin debuts. Farina, with her fetching dark eyes and wry, timid smile reminds one of Molly Ringwald at her pre-"Pretty In Pink" peak. Clements is good as a character that guards himself closely, with a scholarly front that falls apart fast.

Pressed on why he doesn't like Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park," Tom admits he hasn't read it, just that he doesn't like it from reading critical essays about it by Lionel Trilling: "I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism - that way you get both the novelists' ideas and the critics' thinking." "Metropolitan" is full of quotes like that, the product of young people who think they know more than they do but aren't quite bad beneath their smugness. It's not a film of great depth or revelation; Stillman isn't so interested in dissecting his creations as he is in giving them room to express their ideas, goofy and grand. His first film does exactly that, pulling off the twin feat of having cinematic fun and giving a preppie an even break.

"Metropolitan" is a film that hearkens back to an era of old money and tradition, reminiscent of the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century in America. It was a time when men in white bows and tales led girls in pristine, white dresses to their cotillions in ballrooms in gilded hotels like the Plaza in New York where some of this film's scenes take place. The film is a sociological examination of what happens in Park Avenue grand pied-à terres, with after hours parties frequented by the American royalty or upper class. The characters are somewhat hollow, but intellectual in their discussions of 19th century novels and literary critics. These are the children of the very rich, the haute bourgeoisie who attended such hallowed institutions as the Chapin School and Miss Porter's School (Farmington). The characters are fairly well played by unknown actors and actually, I found them to be one dimensional but quite convincing.

Carolyn Farina who plays the demure Audrey Rouget is very sweet and you care about her, at least I did. She is self-deprecating and cute and plays this part to the hilt. Her "Rat Pack" of pals like her, though often she fades into the woodwork, as she is very quiet and somewhat shy. Chris Eigeman, who plays the "tiresome" and overbearing Nick Smith is at times, quite entertaining with his hilarious hyper critical attitude and cynicism about those who surround him. Eigeman plays this role quite well and though you don't really like him, he is so obnoxious which makes him fun to watch. His talk of how "detachable collars" on tuxedos and his pretentious wearing of top hats look quite out of place in this early 1990's film. I like the Jane character and the Sally Fowler character played by Dylan Hundley. These two characters exemplify upper class attitudes by their tastes and speech and are in keeping with how preppy, privileged, upper class American girls behave, at least on the East Coast.

Not much happens plotwise in the film. You are almost left wondering whether something of any importance is going to unfold, this film doesn't really go anywhere. One wonders if the director had some message in mind, for those who always look for such things in a movie. I think rather than being a great drama film, it is more of a social commentary on a lost era in the modern world. Most people probably couldn't identify with this film, as its characters are far more privileged than the average person and far more worldly and educated as evidenced by their speech and interests. Other than the world of debutante balls and nightly after hours parties, this film doesn't show much happening.

Despite its somewhat dated context and what some may view as dull plot, "Metropolitan" is one of my all time fave films. I guess I like the pretense of it and its refreshingly other era feel with I feel gives it a certain charm and je ne sais quoi as the French say.