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Metropolitan
Promotional poster for Metropolitan
Directed by	Whit Stillman
Written by	Whit Stillman
Produced by	Whit Stillman
Starring	Carolyn Farina Edward Clements Taylor Nichols Chris Eigeman Allison Parisi Dylan Hundley
Cinematography	John Thomas
Edited by	Christopher Tellefsen
Music by	Jock Davis Tom Judson Mark Suozzo
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	August 3, 1990 (1990-08-03)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$225,000
Box office	$2,938,208 (USA)

Metropolitan is the debut film by director and screenwriter Whit Stillman. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film is often considered the first of a trilogy of Stillman films, followed by Barcelona (1994, but written before Metropolitan) and The Last Days of Disco (1998).

Plot

Shot on location in Manhattan and Long Island, the movie depicts the lives of young, well-educated upper-class New Yorkers (or, as one character calls them, the "urban haute bourgeoisie") home on winter break from their first year of college during debutante ball season.

Middle-class Princeton student Tom Townsend, an admirer of Charles Fourier's socialism, attends a dress ball one evening on a whim and meets a small group of young Upper East Side socialites with whom he shares some mutual friends. One of the mutual friends is Serena Slocumb, whom Tom dated briefly at boarding school and now pines for. Unbeknownst to Tom, another girl in the group, Audrey, has a crush on him.

Tom attends an after-party following the dress ball, gradually becoming ingratiated with this group of people he previously claimed to disdain. Chief among them are Nick Smith, an outspoken, somewhat cynical dandy, and Charlie Black, a quasi-intellectual who has a crush on Audrey. The group is aware that its social scene and way of life are somewhat anachronistic, and much of the film is taken up by discussions of the milieu and its complex social rules, which Tom often blithely violates. Tom's father is wealthy but left his family several years earlier during his divorce, and apparently took all of their money with him. Tom appears to have a very conflicted relationship with wealth and the upper-class social scene, which is both familiar and unfamiliar to him.

Eventually, Audrey becomes disillusioned with Tom and goes off for a weekend to the Hamptons house of Rick von Slonecker, a callous young aristocrat who dates a great deal. Tom learns from Serena that Audrey has had a crush on Tom from afar for more than a year, and that Serena gave her all of Tom's love letters (which Serena would otherwise have thrown out). Tom and Charlie, worried about what Rick might do to Audrey, take a taxi to the Hamptons to retrieve her. She is touched, and leaves with them. The film ends inconclusively, as Audrey plans to return to study in France and Tom contemplates flying to visit her. The final shot shows Tom, Audrey, and Charlie returning back toward New York City from the Hamptons.

Cast

• Carolyn Farina as Audrey Rouget, a young debutante.
• Edward Clements as Tom Townsend, a Princeton student who falls into Audrey's group of friends.
• Chris Eigeman as Nick Smith, a cynic who takes Tom under his wing.
• Taylor Nichols as Charlie Black, a stammering philosopher who is wary of Tom.
• Allison Parisi as Jane Clark, Audrey's best friend.
• Dylan Hundley as Sally Fowler, an aspiring singer who lets the group use her parents' Upper East Side apartment for their nightly get-togethers.
• Isabel Gillies as Cynthia McLean, Sally's best friend.
• Bryan Leder as Fred Neff, an alcoholic college graduate and mutual friend of the group.
• Will Kempe as Rick Von Sloneker, a rival of Nick and Tom.
• Ellia Thompson as Serena Slocum, Tom's ex-girlfriend, who is dating Von Sloneker.
• Stephen Uys as Victor Lemley.

Production

Whit Stillman wrote the screenplay for Metropolitan between 1984 and 1988 while he was running an illustration agency in New York, and financed it by selling his apartment for $50,000 as well as with a few contributions from family members and friends. Stillman claims the movie is based on events from his life in late 1970, while he was living with his divorced mother in Washington D.C. While on Christmas break during his first year at Harvard University, he met a group of like-minded college students from various universities around the country. Each night, he and his new group of friends attended a formal ballroom dance party at a hotel or convention hall, and then retired to an after-hours gathering at one of the students' parents' houses in nearby Georgetown. The group then spent the remainder of the night talking, debating and discussing a wide range of topics. As in the movie, this nightly ritual eventually ended just after New Year's Day when Stillman and the rest of the group returned to their respective schools.

Awards and honors

• Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay
• Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature

American Film Institute recognition:

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - nominated

References

1. Stephen Holden (1990-08-03). "New Face; Crashing A Socialite's Cozy World". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-04-06.
2. Stillman, Whit. Barcelona & Metropolitan; A Tale of Two Cities. Faber and Faber Ltd. 1994. ISBN 0-571-17365-9
3. AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs Nominees

External links

• Metropolitan at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Metropolitan at Rotten Tomatoes
• Criterion Collection essay by Luc Sante

• 1990 films
• 1990s comedy-drama films
• American coming-of-age films
• American independent films
• Films directed by Whit Stillman
• Directorial debut films
• English-language films
• Films set in New York
• Films shot in New York
• American comedy-drama films