Much of the action takes place in an appropriately gaudy Studio 54-ish club in New York referred to simply as “The Club.” It has a front door carefully guarded by snooty bouncers and surrounded by wanna-be’s desperate to get in and a shady backdoor where those in the know can be slipped in surreptitiously. Inside it has a huge dance floor, glittering disco balls, a grand staircase snaking along one wall, and silver confetti falling on top of the vibrantly varied rabble of dancers whose only link is their desire to dance their cares away inside a private universe. Stillman conveys the essence of the disco era--its unbridled sense of fun and abandon--without falling prey to either kitschy nonsense or moralistic didacticism.

As with his previous two films, the independently produced Metropolitan (1990) and Barcelona (1994), Stillman populates Disco with a group of hyperarticulate young men and women at a crossroads in life (it is not hard to see them as the college freshmen from Metropolitan five or six years later in life). The two primary characters are Alice (Chloë Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), both of whom are recent Hampshire College graduates working as editorial assistants in a large Manhattan publishing house, but their similarities end there. Despite being roommates in a railcar apartment (so named because all the rooms are lined up one behind the other sans hallways like railcars), they have little or nothing in common personality-wise. Alice is reserved and rather quiet, constantly listening but never fully sure of anything. Charlotte, on the other hand, is her extroverted opposite, particularly her tendency to speak her mind with sharp authority and little regard for how her words might affect the other person.

Alice and Charlotte mix and mingle with a group of other aspiring twentysomethings (yuppies, to use the parlance of the times), including Des (Stillman regular Chris Eigeman), who works as a manager at the club and uses his leverage in that position to seduce women and then break it off with them by claiming to have suddenly realized he is gay; Jimmy (Mackenzie Astin), who works in advertising and is banned from the club by its snarky owner (David Thornton) for that reason alone; and Josh (Matt Keeslar), an ambitious district attorney with a history of mental instability. There are other characters, as well, including Tom (Robert Sean Leonard), who shares a night with Alice and then unfairly punishes her for it, and Dan (Matthew Ross), who works at the same publishing house as Alice and Charlotte and shares the former’s sensitivity and the latter’s tendency to speak his mind a little too openly.

As in Stillman’s other films, these characters, while representing distinct personalities, cohere as a group into a collective representation of a particular slice of the human experience, even if that experience is presented in the kind of hyperstylized dialogue that we can only wish to speak with the same off-the-cuff dexterity and fluidity. Stillman has a way with words, and he directs his actors to deploy them with a casual elegance that makes the dialogue seem natural. Stillman also has a gift for spinning conversations around familiar elements of literature and pop culture that, in his characters’ mouths, become laden with specific meaning. Thus, we get genuine insight into Josh when he lets loose his real feelings about the romance in Disney Lady and the Tramp, and Des, despite his overt caddishness, is never more sympathetic and insightful than when he’s ruminating on the limitations of Shakespeare’s quote “To thineself be true” (what if “thineself” is not a good thing?).

There is a plot in The Last Days of Disco, or, rather, a number of subplots that weave together the main characters’ various romantic travails and social dynamics with an investigation into money laundering and other criminal activities at the club. This is the film’s most conventional and, not surprisingly, weakest element, as Stillman attempts to literalize the film’s title in connecting the eventual crackdown on the club with the American culture’s eventual rejection of disco music and the characters’ ever-present need to fully grow up. As such, The Last Days of Disco is another of Stillman’s coming-of-age stories, albeit one that marks the ascent of (possible) maturity with the plummeting popularity of the likes of Chic, The Chi-Lites, Cheryl Lynn, and Blondie, all of whom grace the film’s soundtrack. As always, Stillman observes all of this with a wry, deadpan style that allows us to take the drama seriously while also recognizing the inherent humor of it all.

Copyright ©2009 James Kendrick

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