The Last Days of Disco . Tucson Weekly . 06-15-98

The Last Days of Disco

DIRECTED BY: Whit Stillman

REVIEWED: 06-15-98

With genuine nostalgia edged with spite, filmmaker Whit Stillman (Barcelona, Metropolitan) chronicles the night life and loves of a group of budding Yuppies in the early 1980s. Chloe Sevigny plays Alice, a straight-talking innocent looking for fun. Kate Beckinsale is Charlotte, her conniving roommate. Together they charm half a dozen young men at a Studio 54-like nightclub in New York, without ever actually having a very good time. Whit Stillman's characters are funny, non-stop talkers who recite clever dialogue and seem to be interchangeable. They're entertaining, but they don't seem very authentic. They all keep saying how much "fun" the nightclub is, but it doesn't actually look like very much fun. The most notable thing about it is that characters can sit around talking all night, and they never have to shout over the music, and no one ever says what? Perhaps the amazing thing about The Last Days of Disco is that it does manage to evoke the spirit of the time, and to portray a group dynamic among friends, despite all the talking.

--Richter

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