Metropolitan (DVD)

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"You know the French film ´The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie´? When I first heard the title, I thought ´Finally someone´s gonna tell the truth about the bourgeoisie!´ What a disappointment." - Charlie Black in "Metropolitan"


No matter how the political winds shift, one group has always been a safe target for scorn on the silver screen: the upper class. Hollywood has made its living for decades by portraying rich socialites as selfish boors, often in contrast to the honest and decent working stiffs (i.e. most of the audience). Independent and foreign films have contributed to the project as well. Luis Buñuel built his career by depicting the decadence of the wealthy, and Jean-Luc Godard spent part of the 60s doing the same. In fact, I´m not sure I´ve ever seen a film in which the word "bourgeoisie" was used as anything other than a derogatory term, at least not until Whit Stillman´s "Metropolitan" (1990).

It would be easy to make fun of the people in "Metropolitan" too. They are the children of the upper crust of New York society, wealthy kids in their late teens and early twenties who are born to privilege and are not ashamed of it. They don´t slip on jeans and t-shirts to meet up at White Castle. Instead, they spend their weekends in suits and fancy dresses, gathering in swanky apartments to discuss philosophy, politics, literature and fashion, subjects they know just enough about to be dangerous, if only to themselves.

Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) isn´t part of their group, but soon gets swept into it when he arrives unexpectedly at Sally Fowler´s private party. Tom doesn´t approve of such events; he finds them pretentious. Naturally everybody at the party finds Tom´s objections fascinating and they quiz him about his quaint beliefs: He´s a socialist but not a Marxist; actually he´s a Fourierist. This spawns a whole evening full of conversation and assures that Tom will be accepted into the SFRP: The Sally Fowler Rat Pack. And it´s a good thing because the women in the SFRP desperately need another man. After all, "There is a real escort shortage. It´s no joke!"

Against his better judgment, Tom finds he enjoys his new friends. He particularly admires Nick Smith (Christopher Eigeman) a walking, talking F. Scott Fitzgerald character. In turn, Audrey (Carolyn Farina) falls for Tom which means that Charlie Black (Taylor Nichols) hates Tom because Charlie secretly loves Audrey. Tom is oblivious to the whole mess because he loves Serena Slocum (Elizabeth Thomson) who seems to have been involved with just about everybody at some point. And they all hate smug, suave Rick Von Sloneker (Will Kempe), or at least the men do, mostly because the women don´t.

"Metropolitan" is a proudly literary film. The characters not only talk about books incessantly (Tom forms strong opinions about books he has never read) but they speak like characters from a book as well. Stillman´s dialogue is intentionally non-naturalistic. Their speech patterns are formal, deliberate, and long-winded. It all takes a lot of getting used to, but once you fall into the rhythm, it´s like listening to music.

What a strange and alien world Stillman has created. These are people who talk about debutante balls the way most people talk about the Superbowl (they even watch the big deb ball on TV). They seem to live in their own hermetic world, completely oblivious to anything else going on in the city apart from the SFRP. They even invent their own language. Charlie coins the term U.H.B. (Ultra Haute-Bourgeoisie) to describe them. Nick likes the word, but thinks it should be pronounced "Ub" while Charlie simply prefers to use the letters in the acronym. Is this how religious schisms begin?