|
|
|
|
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
|
Metropolitan (1990) by David Thomson Metropolitan is not for everyone; but that is not a mark of shame or condemnation. There are some things that do apply to everyone, yet it is not in their nature to be distinct or memorable, or even noticed--they include air, and troubled sleep. Other things have more select followings. These include all movies (whatever the business likes to think), Sage Derby cheese, the novels of Jane Austen, and a frame of reference that moves easily from Thorstein Veblen to Babar, the elephant of the children's books. (Austen, Veblen, and Babar are but three of the acquired tastes shared by the characters in this film.) A great many of our movies try to be about as many people as possible. They are founded on such questions as, "Will people get this... will they like the guy?" And so a kind of dumb, nervy flattery sets in: films are ingratiating, they speak well of our lives and tell us to feel good--so that we will buy the movie. There are not many eccentrics in American film, not many fringes to this society which actually feels constantly tattered, edgy, and borderline. Even when minorities are addressed, the films hope to speak to and of and for all blacks, all gays, all serial killers. In Metropolitan, writer-director-producer Whit Stillman elected to explore a few winter weeks in the life of a band of young people who seem as estranged as children shipwrecked on the isle of Manhattan, or the members of a religion so obscure even its adherents have forgotten the Word. They are debutantes and their escorts, still aiming to "come out," no matter that the world is wide open. They are kids just into college, wondering how exactly their privilege, their refinement and their character will ensure their doom in modern, egalitarian America. |
 |
|
|
The film is very funny, and in its first moments it is easy to suppose that we are meant to do no more than laugh at a few spoiled idiots who have the added misfortune that they speak coherently, feel deeply, and wonder and worry about so many things beyond their own skins. In other words, this could be a satire on a version of our upper class. But these undoubtedly ridiculous and pretentious young people are very complicated: they are also intelligent, serious, vulnerable, aware of most of their faults and of their larger absurdity. What makes them seem strange is that they are so grown-up. Metropolitan is less a satire than a gentle comedy of manners and errant love in a tradition that goes back to Lubitsch, Jane Austen, Mozart, and Shakespeare (and Babar). The series of meetings, parties and conversations turns very prettily into a dance in which, at first, Tom and Audrey, the film's central characters, cannot quite fall into the refreshing pond called love that waits patiently at their feet. Not that this is simply a celebration of true love. These are complicated, troubled people, far too ingenious to settle for happiness. Of all the American movies of 1990 that might get a sequel, Metropolitan's would interest me most, for Whit Stillman has given us a group of people at the outset of their adult lives. They are so true, and we know they could go wrong--there is so much more to see and wonder about. |
|
|
|
|
Metropolitan was modest in its making, yet the direction is very deft. The only flaw in the film is a brief, but coarse dream sequence. Whit Stillman holds extraordinary promise, if he can resist such melodrama and go on making films for just a few people. He handles these actors (all of them unknowns) with the great tact that encourages the good and restrains the less good. He seems to know the necessity of a script that works like a fine clockwork toy. This was an astonishing, elegant debut, and a film that will be especially rewarding watched over again on video--for it attempts no spectacle smaller or larger than that of human faces. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum. |
|
|
| home | forum | this month | reviews archive | features archive | back issues | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 © 2003 Movieline.com |
 |