Clovers In The Atmosphere

I saw whit stillman's "metropolitan" last night. and I think I loved it. It was a very strange thing. but it was just so pretty and small. I saw last days of disco in the theater in high school through no act of cinematographic hipness of my own. And all I remember from it is that it felt different from other movies and I liked that. it was calmer. I think the same is true of "metropolitan."

there is also something iincredibly charming about setting essentially creating a modern Jane Austin novel which is what "metropolitan" is. (It is actually a story about social interactions of wealthy manhattan preppies (urban haute bourgousie) who have returned from college for christmas. I know it sounds like the run-up to "Less than zero" but I think the restraint that stillman shows with a setup that begs for bombast or mockery are what I liked so much.

There was an interesting sub-plot in the movie when Tom townsend, who opens the movie as the rebellious intellectual, admits to not having read many of the "great books" to which he alludes while Audrey Rouget has. This mirrors the older son and girlfriend of squid & the Whale perfectly.