Themes: Twentysomething Life, Faltering Friendships, Social Climbing
Main Cast: Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Eigeman, Matt Keeslar, MacKenzie Astin
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
As another installment of Whit Stillman's trilogy, The Last Days of Disco fits chronologically between Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994), with several cameos overlapping and linking the films. During "the very early 1980s," friends gather at a popular Manhattan disco club reminiscent of Studio 54, where getting past the velvet ropes and inside was the first step. Edgy ad-exec Jimmy (Mackenzie Astin) can sometimes get his clients in with the help of the club's womanizing assistant manager, his pal Des (Chris Eigeman), who lets them enter via the rear door. Beautiful brunette Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) and her former college classmate Alice (Chloe Sevigny) move about the club during the 24-minute opening club sequence. Attorney Tom (Robert Sean Leonard) takes an interest in calm, reserved Alice. Both Alice and the opinionated, assertive Charlotte hold day jobs as entry-level editorial associates at a small book publisher. With Holly (Tara Subkoff) as a third roommate, the trio rents a railroad flat in the Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood. Charlotte throws dinner parties in an effort to solidify a social circle as an alternative to "the ferocious pairing off" around her. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
Whit Stillman films are known for being chock-full of smart, snappy dialogue and little else, and The Last Days of Disco tinkers with that formula only slightly. The third installment of Stillman's "Yuppie" trilogy, along with Metropolitan and Barcelona, finds the same character types discussing the same issues, although this time the setting is the dawning Reagan years when disco is going down for the count. Stillman uses the closing of a disco palace to delve into the drug and sex themes and symbolize the end of an era, and his main obstacle this time around is that his characters are all designed to be rather unlikable, which is a big hurdle to overcome. Kate Beckinsale, American accent in tow, is one of the more disagreeable women to grace the screen but she delivers some of the best lines in the film. Chloe Sevigny, on hand as the moral center, tries to garnish what sympathy the audience is willing to give but can't quite muster it. Stillman regular Christopher Eigeman more or less reprises his roles from the earlier films, but he too has some terrific one-liners. Even those who appear to be above the fray, like MacKenzie Astin and Robert Sean Leonard have their downsides. Everyone in this film seems way too intellectual to be true, which doesn't help matters much, but Stillman is so good at manipulating the situations that their flaws actually become hypnotic. In perhaps one of the subtlest ways imaginable, each character represents the death of disco. Surprisingly for a Stillman film, it's a bit of a downer. However, the soundtrack alone is enough to make one wistful for the days of mirror balls. ~ Dan Friedman, All Movie Guide
The Last Days of Disco is a 1998 film written and directed by Whit Stillman and loosely based on his travels and experiences in various nightclubs in Manhattan, and possibly at Studio 54. Much like his previous film, Metropolitan, Last Days of Disco deals with a group of Ivy League- and Hampshire-educated Manhattanites, recently graduated from college and law school, falling in and out of love in the urban environment of the very early 1980s disco scene.
The Last Days of Disco is the third film in what Stillman calls his "Doomed-Bourgeois-in-Love series" that began with Metropolitan and continued with his acclaimed Barcelona. In 2000, Stillman published a part-novelization of the film: The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards. The film was released on VHS and DVD formats in 1999.[1] A new DVD edition of the film will be released by The Criterion Collection on August 25, 2009.[2]
The Last Days of Disco loosely depicts the "last days" at a disco palace, where drugs, sex and weirdness ran rampant. The story centers around a group of friends who frequent the disco and each other. All the characters are searching for something to make their lives more fulfilling. Some are searching for everlasting love and some are just wanting something different. As the disco is closed, they all wonder can disco ever really be dead?
I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round) - 3:13 (India & Nuyorican Soul)
Reaction
The Last Days of Disco was released on May 29, 1998 in 22 theaters where it grossed $277,601 on its opening weekend. It went on to make $3 million in North America.[3]
The film received positive to mixed reviews. It has a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 76 metascore on Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "If Scott Fitzgerald were to return to life, he would feel at home in a Whit Stillman movie. Stillman listens to how people talk, and knows what it reveals about them".[4] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Chris Eigeman's performance: "Mr. Eigeman makes the filmmaker a perfect mouthpiece who can brood amusingly about anything, no matter how petty. Here he plumbs the psychological subtext of Lady and the Tramp".[5]Andrew Sarris, in his review for The New York Observer, wrote, "Mr. Stillman's free ticket with the critics for the seemingly magical minimalism of Metropolitan has long since expired. In his future projects, all the charm and buoyancy in the world may not compensate for a lack of structure and bedrock reality".[6]Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A-" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "Stillman's gang may be maturing precariously close to middle age, but it's lovely to know the important pleasures of conversation and intellectual discussion endure".[7] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan praised the "exceptional acting ensemble" for being "successful at capturing the brittle rituals of this specific group of genteel, well-spoken young people on the cusp of adulthood who say things like 'What I was craving was a sentient individual' and 'It's far more complicated and nuanced than that'."[8]
