Tales From the Velvet Ropes

Whit Stillman takes a verbose and sweetly nostalgic trip back to 1980s Manhattan for 'The Last Days of Disco'

REVIEW BY STEVE RAMOS

CityBeat grade: A.

Sex is the common goal. Drugs are abundant. Everybody dances. And the deconstruction of Disney's Lady and the Tramp is a popular topic of conversation. Welcome to Whit Stillman's '80s, via his latest film, The Last Days of Disco. His is an unseemly literate rendition of a Studio 54-like nightclub. Imagine the Algonquin Round Table with a disco ball overhead. And although it's doubtful the endless, witty banter spoken by Stillman's attractive Disco cast ever crossed the lips of a true "Studio" regular, its distinct, Stillman-like dialogue is what ultimately makes The Last Days of Disco such effervescent fun.

Alice (Chlo‘ Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) are both recent Hampshire College graduates, eking out a living with jobs at a Manhattan book publisher. Their jobs are dull. Their Yorkville apartment, shared with a third roommate, Holly (Tara Subkoff), is drab. Only their daily dose of clubland provides the necessary sparkle in their lives. It's New York City in the early 1980s. And for Alice, Charlotte and all their friends, the disco is still the place to see and be seen.

"We look really good tonight," Charlotte tells Alice, standing outside "the club." "I'm sure we're getting in." Still, the long lines of people waiting beyond the velvet ropes say differently. So Charlotte and Alice hail a cab, quickly reappearing in more glamorous fashion. After all, how you look is what ultimately gains you precious entry.

It soon becomes clear Stillman's Disco isn't really about disco. The film's pulsating retro soundtrack and glittery dance floor setting only provide a backdrop for the film's meatier issues. Like Stillman's previous two films, Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994), The Last Days of Disco focuses on the social politics of its young, privileged protagonists. The Last Days of Disco is primarily a coming-of-age tale, concerned with typically youthful, urban anxieties: first job out of college, apartment hunting and significant relationships.

True to Stillman's gift of cinematic gab, The Last Days of Disco's young nightcrawlers are as dialogue-driven as both Metropolitan's WASPy debutantes and Barcelona's American salesmen in Spain at the end of the Cold War. The film's themes are also vaguely familiar. Alice, Charlotte and their extended group of male admirers (Matt Keeslar, Mackenzie Astin, Robert Sean Leonard) ramble endlessly about loyalty, friendship and longing. Leader of this angst-ridden pack is Stillman regular Chris Eigeman. As Des, the coke-snorting underboss of the club, Eigeman is exceptionally droll, discarding old girlfriends by telling them he's gay. He's also laid-back about his increasing drug use. "I'm not an addict," he says. "I'm a habitual user."

Much of their banter is vacant cocktail philosophy -- sort of like Seinfeld for the Mensa set. A club owner ruminates the significance of the past perfect tense. The meaning behind the phrase 'yuppie scum' is discussed. The more meaningful questions being asked are: Why do women always order vodka tonics? and What do men really think about women's breasts? All of the conversations are wonderfully funny. In this "disco," the words, not the music, take swift priority.

Still, not everything about Last Days of Disco follows a strict Stillman pattern. Unlike his previous films which were distinctly "guy-o-centric," Stillman's Disco takes a "gal-o-centric" route by setting its story around two female leads. Both actresses offer the film a sense of newness. Kate Beckinsale might just be another face to most audiences, maybe slightly prettier than most. But discriminating moviegoers might remember Beckinsale from the recent British comedy Shooting Fish, the 1995 John Schlesinger comedy Cold Comfort Farm, as well as her starring role in the TV adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. Beckinsale is thoroughly charming as the bitchy Charlotte who gets away with murder due to her good looks.

Still, it's Sevigny who's the true star of this retro-dramedy. Sevigny sparkles. She's both pretty and compelling, funny and melancholy. Sevigny fills Stillman's other-worldly dialogue with lifelike realism. Although her work in recent avant-garde films such as Kids and Gummo hint at her emotional talents, The Last Days of Disco shows Sevigny is capable of becoming a great leading actress.

Still, The Last Days of Disco's coming-of-age tale might strike some as dull in comparison to Anthony Haden-Guest's gossipy novel, The Last Party, or the upcoming disco film 54. It's clear Stillman kept the film's sex scenes intentionally subtle. Its drug use is casual. Really, all of the film's decadence is kept at a distance. The Last Days of Disco has no shock value. This is a sweetly innocent trip behind the velvet ropes of the 1980s club culture.

The Last Days of Disco may not really be about the disco. Still, it's much richer than some simple act of cinematic nostalgia. It's not that there isn't plenty of dancing. Only this time, these disco dancers have something poignant to say.

CityBeat, Vol. 4, Issue 29; June 11-17, 1998