Stars: Edward Clements, Carolyn Farina, Chris Eigeman, Taylor Nichols, Allison Parisi | Written and Directed by Whit Stillman
One might think of Whit Stillman’s minor hit debut as the uptown, Eastside answer to Richard Linklater’s Slacker, which was also released in 1990. Between them they set the template for many a late-century indie: a loose and unfocused narrative peopled by an array of flawed characters discussing life, love, inclusion and exclusion, human existence and God.
The plot ostensibly concerns our sort-of-hero, Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), as he attends a series of preppy parties in various posh apartments in Manhattan. But Tom can’t share a taxi home with the others. He is – gasp! – a “Westsider”, which to a UK audience means he’s not quite as ridiculously wealthy as his friends. This isn’t a late-teen friendship group we normally see on screen. Remember that brilliant tennis club scene in Trading Places?...
One might think of Whit Stillman’s minor hit debut as the uptown, Eastside answer to Richard Linklater’s Slacker, which was also released in 1990. Between them they set the template for many a late-century indie: a loose and unfocused narrative peopled by an array of flawed characters discussing life, love, inclusion and exclusion, human existence and God.
The plot ostensibly concerns our sort-of-hero, Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), as he attends a series of preppy parties in various posh apartments in Manhattan. But Tom can’t share a taxi home with the others. He is – gasp! – a “Westsider”, which to a UK audience means he’s not quite as ridiculously wealthy as his friends. This isn’t a late-teen friendship group we normally see on screen. Remember that brilliant tennis club scene in Trading Places?...
- 5/8/2018
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
When Whit Stillman's "Metropolitan" hit theaters in 1990, it seemed like an overnight success. But the low-budget film about a group of self-proclaimed "urban haute bourgeoisie" in Manhattan hardly had an easy time making it into the world. On the occasion of its 25th anniversary re-release, Indiewire recently spoke to Stillman and cast members Carolyn Farina, Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman, who reflected on the challenges -- and joys -- of making the film. Read More: Whit Stillman's 'Metropolitan' to Get 25th Anniversary Re-Release Set "not so long ago" during winter vacation on Manhattan's Upper East Side, "Metropolitan" follows young Ivy League student Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), who falls in with a clique of upper-crust preppies (portrayed by Farina, Nichols, Eigeman, Bryan Leder, Will Kempe, Elizabeth Thompson, Dylan Hundley, Isabel Gillies and Allison Parisi) who attend winter debutante balls. The low-budget film shot in borrowed...
- 8/6/2015
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
On the 25th anniversary of Whit Stillman's feature debut, Rialto Pictures is sending Metropolitan, featuring Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Taylor Nichols, Carolyn Farina and Elizabeth Thompson, out on limited runs in New York, Los Angeles and Maryland. "Few will identify with the ludicrously wealthy characters, who speak in perpetual bon mots and are virtually never seen in anything but formalwear," grants Mike D'Angelo at the Av Club, "but their stubborn refusal to evolve with the culture—forever sounding as if they’re in one of the Jane Austen novels they so earnestly discuss—is part of their charm." We've got the new trailer and we're collecting more reviews. » - David Hudson...
- 8/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
On the 25th anniversary of Whit Stillman's feature debut, Rialto Pictures is sending Metropolitan, featuring Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Taylor Nichols, Carolyn Farina and Elizabeth Thompson, out on limited runs in New York, Los Angeles and Maryland. "Few will identify with the ludicrously wealthy characters, who speak in perpetual bon mots and are virtually never seen in anything but formalwear," grants Mike D'Angelo at the Av Club, "but their stubborn refusal to evolve with the culture—forever sounding as if they’re in one of the Jane Austen novels they so earnestly discuss—is part of their charm." We've got the new trailer and we're collecting more reviews. » - David Hudson...
- 8/6/2015
- Keyframe
With this past Spring’s release of Damsels In Distress, his first new title in thirteen years, the Criterion Collection has refurbished two Whit Stillman titles this month, including his impressive independent darling from 1990, Metropolitan. An odd-duck anachronism upon its initial release, time has only added a more subdued refinement and fascination to its subject matter, a depiction of a dying culture giving birth to an auteur whose own brand of strangeness may have recently shown itself to be as equally misdated in dealing with the modern youth in today’s world, where the upper class more freely walks amongst its inferior company.
One New York Christmas, not long ago, a group of seven upper class young adults on Christmas vacation are on their way to a deb ball, and it tis the season for a considerable flurry of such high brow events. Several members of the group known as...
One New York Christmas, not long ago, a group of seven upper class young adults on Christmas vacation are on their way to a deb ball, and it tis the season for a considerable flurry of such high brow events. Several members of the group known as...
- 7/17/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray Release Date: July 24, 2012
Price: Blu-ray $39.95 each
Studio: Criterion
Chris Eigman is flanked in Metropolitan.
A pair of New York independent filmmaker Whit Stillman’s (Damsels in Distress) sophisticated comedy films from the 1990s, Metropolitan (1990) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), arrive on Blu-ray from Criterion following the label’s previous release of the titles on DVD in 2006 and 2009, respectively.
Acclaimed as one of the great American indies of the 1990s, writer/director Stillman’s Metropolitan is a comedic chronicle of a middle-class young man’s (Edward Clements) romantic misadventures in New York City’s debutante society, where a chatty group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, the movie co-stars Chris Eigman, Carolyn Farina and Taylor Nichols.
The Blu-ray of Metropolitan contains the following features, all of which were first issued on the DVD (except...
Price: Blu-ray $39.95 each
Studio: Criterion
Chris Eigman is flanked in Metropolitan.
A pair of New York independent filmmaker Whit Stillman’s (Damsels in Distress) sophisticated comedy films from the 1990s, Metropolitan (1990) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), arrive on Blu-ray from Criterion following the label’s previous release of the titles on DVD in 2006 and 2009, respectively.
Acclaimed as one of the great American indies of the 1990s, writer/director Stillman’s Metropolitan is a comedic chronicle of a middle-class young man’s (Edward Clements) romantic misadventures in New York City’s debutante society, where a chatty group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, the movie co-stars Chris Eigman, Carolyn Farina and Taylor Nichols.
The Blu-ray of Metropolitan contains the following features, all of which were first issued on the DVD (except...
- 4/25/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Charlie: Do you know the film, "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise?" When I first saw that title, I though, "Finally, someone is going to tell the truth about the bourgeoisie." What a disappointment. It would be hard to imagine a less fair or accurate portrait.
Cynthia: Well of course, Bunuel is a surrealist. Despising the bourgeoisie is part of their credo.
Nick: (disgusted) Where do they get off?
Charlie: The truth is the bourgeoisie does have a lot of charm.
Nick: Of course it does, the surrealists were just a bunch of social climbers.
- Whit Stillman, "Metropolitan"
Famously dubbed the “the Wasp Woody Allen” and the “Dickens of people with too much inner life” by reviewers and critics when his comedy-of-manners indie pictures arrived in the early 1990s, Whit Stillman’s ironic, clever and urbane examinations of upward and downward social mobility and the shallow concerns and preoccupations of the young,...
Cynthia: Well of course, Bunuel is a surrealist. Despising the bourgeoisie is part of their credo.
Nick: (disgusted) Where do they get off?
Charlie: The truth is the bourgeoisie does have a lot of charm.
Nick: Of course it does, the surrealists were just a bunch of social climbers.
- Whit Stillman, "Metropolitan"
Famously dubbed the “the Wasp Woody Allen” and the “Dickens of people with too much inner life” by reviewers and critics when his comedy-of-manners indie pictures arrived in the early 1990s, Whit Stillman’s ironic, clever and urbane examinations of upward and downward social mobility and the shallow concerns and preoccupations of the young,...
- 4/6/2012
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
Just slightly over a week ago, Hadrian Belove of the Cinefamily in Los Angeles introduced a screening of Tom Noonan's "What Happened Was" by recalling the era it came out in which "a great movie was coming out every week." That feeling is being recreated for the next month with the series "When Indies Rocked," a veritable wonderland for fans of the '90s boom that introduced the world to writer/directors like Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, Neil Labute, and Todd Haynes, among others.
Throughout Fridays in February, Payne, Russell, "In the Soup" director Alexandre Rockwell and "One False Move" star Bill Paxton are all scheduled to stop by the theater on Fairfax to reflect on their early work, but a tone of celebration is being set early with a 20th anniversary screening of Whit Stillman's "Metropolitan" this Sunday night. The ideal reminder of a time in...
Throughout Fridays in February, Payne, Russell, "In the Soup" director Alexandre Rockwell and "One False Move" star Bill Paxton are all scheduled to stop by the theater on Fairfax to reflect on their early work, but a tone of celebration is being set early with a 20th anniversary screening of Whit Stillman's "Metropolitan" this Sunday night. The ideal reminder of a time in...
- 1/28/2011
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
In the issue of EW that came out 20 years ago this week (cover story: Elvis Presley!), I gave negative reviews to a pair of movies that both arrived on the scene to a kind of instant cachet: Whit Stillman’s insect-under- glass preppy drawing-room comedy Metropolitan and the Christian Slater midnight-radio- outlaw fable Pump Up the Volume. I wasn’t with the pack on either one; both had legions of fans, and critics, behind them. So I thought I’d go back and take another look at both movies to see if I still agreed with my original reviews. I...
- 8/26/2010
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW.com - The Movie Critics
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