Whit Stillman couldn't have made movies in the silent era. His pictures
(Metropolitan, Barcelona) are non-stop talk. And he doesn't break
form in his current effort, The Last Days of Disco. Stillman's
characters aren't quite real, their facile tongues blithely revealing more of
themselves than would a normal person. Listening to these people yap, though,
is an intense pleasure. You're fascinated even by those characters you detest.
Set in the early 1980s, The Last Days of Disco is a deadpan
look at a group of acquaintances who went to college together and have now
entered the nascent days of their professional lives. Alice (Chloe Sevigny, who
does standout work here) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale, also fine) work
together at the lowest editorial level of a publishing house. Alice is quiet
and thoughtful; Charlotte is a chatterbox with a bland mean streak. The two
haven't ever been friends, but they decide to take an apartment together with
Holly (Tara Subkoff), a girl everybody derides as "dull." By day, the young
women read books and dream of finding a best seller. By night, they hook up
with their male chums and go drinking and dancing at a disco. Jimmy (Mackenzie
Astin) is in advertising, Josh (Matt Keeslar) is an assistant district
attorney, and Des (Chris Eigeman) is in management at the disco. All are
well-bred yuppies scraping by on meager salaries, sure that far better days lie
ahead. None of them really cares about any of the others.
Part of the humor of this flick derives from its characters'
astonishing disloyalty. Jealous of Alice's intelligence, Charlotte does
everything she can to undermine Alice's social self-confidence. Jimmy is so
embarrassed by a friend's clothes he demands the pal wear an overcoat to hide
his suit. Des throws Jimmy out of the disco when Des' boss reveals that he
hates people in advertising. And Des beds a series of women, dumping them in
turn with lame excuses. Dan (Matthew Ross), who works at the publishing house,
spouts idealistic rhetoric but treats Holly as shabbily as everyone else.
Most of all, there's the talk. Tom (Robert Sean Leonard) waxes
euphoric about the collectability of Scrooge McDuck comics and opines that
environmentalism was spawned in the 1950s when a generation of Baby Boomers was
traumatized by the death of Bambi's mother. The entire ensemble debates at
length the symbolic implications of Lady and the Tramp. And Charlotte
holds forth with the notion that venereal disease isn't all bad because it
forces you to get back in touch with former lovers you may have drifted apart
from too soon. This is seldom belly-laugh material, but it's the kind of stuff
that has you chortling a day later.
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