Metropolitan (1990)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Whit Stillman

Writer:

Whit Stillman (writer)

Release Date:

3 August 1990 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Finally... A film about the downwardly mobile.

Plot:

A group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season, when an unusual outsider joins them and stirs them up.

Plot Keywords:

Upper Class | Apartment | Debutante | New York | Socialite

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Carolyn Farina	...	Audrey Rouget
Edward Clements	...	Tom Townsend
Chris Eigeman	...	Nick Smith (as Christopher Eigeman)
Taylor Nichols	...	Charlie Black
Allison Parisi	...	Jane Clark
Dylan Hundley	...	Sally Fowler
Isabel Gillies	...	Cynthia McLean
Bryan Leder	...	Fred Neff
Will Kempe	...	Rick Von Sloneker
Ellia Thompson	...	Serena Slocum (as Elizabeth Thompson)
Stephen Uys	...	Victor Lemley
Roger W. Kirby	...	Man at Bar (Dick Edwards)
Alice Connorton	...	Mrs. Townsend
Linda Gillies	...	Mrs. Rouget
John Lynch	...	Allen Green (as John Lynch)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Iceland:L | Australia:PG | Sweden:Btl | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Cornwall, New York, USA

Company:

Allagash Films

Trivia:

This was the first film for almost all of the young cast.

Quotes:

Tom Townsend: You don't have to read a book to have an opinion.

Movie Connections:

Features The Yule Log (1966) (TV)

Soundtrack:

I Need Love

A well-crafted East-Coast talkie...

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.