Damsels in Distress (2011)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:        Greta Gerwig, Anaeligh Tipton, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke

A trio of girls set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, grunge and low standards of every kind. They adopt a new transfer student to their clique and over the course of the film, the four girls date less attractive men in order to help the men's confidence. 

Film is really out there even if you are familiar with Whitman's other films. This one, he made after a long gap of twelve years and he is really a vastly underrated figure when you consider that he made three great indie films with his first three efforts over an 8 year period. The humor in Damsels in Distress is really quirky and outlandish and very different from his previous films. Stylistically, it is a very unique film and you can't really pin it down into some sort of category. I haven't seen Animal House but it is like an inverse take on such films with the characters being unbelievably frank, cooperative and naive. There isn't much of a plot to speak of and even though the humor in it is quite uneven in terms of frequency, there are more than enough laughs to make it worthwhile. 

Overall, it is a very good watch while not being as good as any of the previous Stillman films. It might not be for everyone but I did enjoy watching it. Performances are really good and Greta Gerwig is a favorite actor of mine with her performances in all these quirky films. Can't wait to watch Noah Baumbach's 'Mistress America', which is getting rave reviews.

Rating: 3.5/5  

                                                                           

The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman

Story of two female Manhattan book editors fresh out of college, both finding love and themselves while frequenting the local disco. The first three of Whitman's films are together classed as 'Doomed-Bourgeoisie-in-Love' series and this one concerns a group of Ivy league and Hampshire graduates. Film is set in early 1980s New-York and the two main characters were not really friends during their college days but circumstances have conspired to make them share an apartment with a third girl. Personality wise they are polar opposite with the Kate Beckinsale character being the dominant one. 

Unlike previous Whit Stillman films, where the interactions between the main characters were a bit endearingly harmless mischievous kind, in this one it is much more cutthroat and cruel. That kind of took me aback initially but it is kind of realistic if you go by the stereotypical way female acquaintances are supposed to interact. Humor in it is much more of the darker kind and film as a whole is quite three dimensional compared to his previous efforts. If you think you are gonna get a typical Whit Stillman film, then there is a chance that you might get disappointed by it. But it is still a great film in which Stillman chooses to go a bit more adult. All his first three films are set in 1980s with Metropolitan being the latest one in the chronological sense of its setting. There is references to previous two films with Matt Ross' (Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley) being kind of a cartoonish take on the protagonist from Metropolitan and Taylor Nichols making a cameo reprising  his role from Barcelona. There is also this USS Maine reference from Barcelona as well.

Overall, it is another great one from Stillman with his own identity etched on to it rather than being very Woody Allenesque. Chloe Sevigny as the uptight protagonist reminded me of Greta Gerwig and sure enough, she is in Stillman's next effort 'Damsels in Distress', which came out after a very long gap in 2011. Disco didn't do very well financially but was very well received by critics. That fact that it is in the Criterion collection itself should be enough of an advertisement now.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                         

Barcelona (1994)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen

Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales for the Barcelona office of a US corporation, is paid an unexpected visit by his somewhat less stuffy cousin Fred, who is an officer in the US Navy. Over the next few months, both their lives are irrevocably altered by the events which follow Fred's arrival, events which are the trivial stuff of a comedy of manners at first but which gradually grow increasingly dramatic.

Yeah right, it is not a post on how Capello's Milan raped the favorites, Cryuff's Barcelona, 4-0 in the 1994 Champions League final. I had recently discovered Whit Stillman through his debut film 'Metropolitan'. This is his second film after a long gap of four years and he had a significantly higer budget of $3 million to work with. It took me about three weeks to obtain the 1.7GB print and it was totally worth it because of the exquisite way it is visualized. Barcelona frequently figures at top among the best cities to visit/live lists and lent itself very well for films. We are now very familiar with such English films set in European cities with Woody Allen filming his recent ones there. One could really say Whit Stillman got there first, but then again, considerable Woody Allen influence is there in Stillman's films itself.

In 'Metropolitan', we had rich kids from privileged background fretting about the hate that other people have for them and worrying about downward social mobility. Instead of that, we have two American guys fretting about the hate that people from other nationalities have for American, quite unreasonably in their opinion. That and other things like why Europeans look down upon US 'culture', which Americans themselves accept in a self-deprecating manner. It is summed up in the below conversation.

Fred: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and...

Ted: Really?

Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs - they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?

Ted: The text.

Fred: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.

It is tremendously funny like you would expect and is a must watch if you are a fan of Woody Allen. Film is quite hard to describe and best way to do is to say it is like a Woody Allen film. Stillman's first three films are supposed to be part of a trilogy with the third and last one being 'Last Days Of Disco', which I am going to watch pretty soon. Both Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman were in Metropolitan as well.

Marta: Ramon is very persuasive, and he painted a terrible picture of what it would be like for her to live the rest of her life in America, with all of its crime, consumerism, and vulgarity. All those loud, badly dressed, fat people watching their eighty channels of television and visiting shopping malls. The plastic throw-everything-away society with its notorious violence and racism. And finally, the total lack of culture.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                    

Metropolitan (1990)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Carolyn Farina, Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman

A group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season, when an unusual outsider joins them and stirs them up. 

I am not familiar with Jane Austen's work and I don't think I have seen any of the films that were adapted from her books. But I do have a vague idea about what it entails and this film has been described as a post-Austen work. I came across this film through an Indiewire article which described it to be an influence on the works of Richard Linklater and Noah Baumbach. That should be a reason enough to check out this little indie-hit from the 90s. Bourgeoisie is something that gets mocked in many of my favorite films and this film does a genre-bender on that, with having people from that class (self proclaimed as 'Urban Haute Bourgeoisie') discuss the pressures that they face and fret about downward-mobility. You have one character in it saying how he was looking forward to Luis Bunuel's 'Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie', thinking that it will be a film that appreciates the qualities of their class, going by the title. Film is laugh out loud funny with an extremely intelligent script. You have them complaining about the titled-aristocracy of Europe who looks down on them. A great thing about it is that even though we think we are getting a protagonist perspective from the outsider character played by Edward Clements, it is actually through Carolyn Farina that we view the film for the majority of its running length. So, we are not sure about his motives and in the end it turns out that he is quite honest about it which we find surprising. It is a character that many of us from the middle class/upper middle class can identify with and will make you question yourself. Some in the group find him to be a phony but he has got the backing of Chris Eigeman character, who acts as the Tyler Durden of the group. The ending of the film is quite contrived, but it does earn enough credit up till then for us to be happy about it. 

Overall it is a great watch and one that you will love it if you are the kind of person that enjoys the works of Woody Allen, Linklater and Noah Baumbach. Performances are great and it is really a coming-of-age film that is hilariously funny. Most of the cast were first-time actors who got the gig through auditions. It managed to get a screening at Cannes and got an academy award nomination for best screenplay. Whit Stillman made his directorial debut with this film and I will certainly catch up with other films. Metropolitan was made on a budget of $225k and was a box office success, grossing around $3 million.  

Rating: 4.5/5