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Club Kids In 'Disco' Daze
Whit Stillman spins a funny tale of East Siders grooving
Set in "the very early 1980s" in and around an ultra-chic Manhattan disco that could be Studio 54 (but which, probably for legal reasons, is not) and centered around a group of recent college graduates who are no strangers to the upper East Side world of money and privilege, "The Last Days of Disco" sounds like an easy swipe at times and people safely past.
But it is the particular gift of writer-director Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan," "Barcelona") to be able to take the well-to-do with a certain degree of seriousness and sympathy, without losing sight of their limitations. In his hands, "The Last Days of Disco" becomes a small miracle of comic social portraiture, a sometimes affectionate, sometimes ironic study of a specific group at a specific moment. His work is deeply evocative and enjoyable.
Alice (Chloe Sevigny, the sweet, gawky Jenny of "Kids") and Charlotte (pert English actress Kate Beckinsale of "Cold Comfort Farm") didn't like each other in college; now, they're working at the same entry-level jobs at the same midtown publishing house and frequenting the same downtown disco where their old friend Des (Stillman regular Chris Eigeman) is the womanizing assistant manager.
Inevitably, they become roommates, if not quite deeply and permanently friends. At the club, Stillman assembles a group of suitors around them, drawn by their very different qualities - Alice's innocence and moral commitment, Charlotte's sophistication and happy hedonism.
Mackenzie Astin is Jimmy, a junior ad executive with a backbone problem; Robert Sean Leonard is a reserved upperclassman who impulsively seduces Alice; Matthew Keeslar is an idealistic prosecutor with a breakdown in his past.
The club - actually constructed in a disused movie palace in Jersey City - is portrayed as a sort of Shakespearean enchanted forest, a magical place where (once the formidable barrier of getting past the doorman has been crossed), all erotic possibilities seem to flower, and any and every alliance is possible.
Stillman creates characters who are bright, articulate and self-aware, but without the experience they need to make sense of their lives. The events of "Last Days," which include a number of pairings and repairings, professional upheaval and a brush with the law, lead some of the characters to a new sense of maturity, and leave others in a state of blissful self-involvement - yet Stillman doesn't judge them.
The days of disco end - in a riot of record burning that Stillman makes look like the French Revolution - just as the idyll of young adulthood must eventually end, as well. Stillman's film looks back on both periods with affection and amusement - it makes you glad to have been there, and glad that it's over.
Dave Kehr
The New York Daily News
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