Metropolitan

A world away, but in the same anti-stereotype vicinity, Whit Stillman's 1990 debut comedy Metropolitan (about slow maturation among New York's white debutantes) makes one look and think twice about our social preconceptions. Metropolitan's insights into class and behavior remain unmatched-except by Stillman's own Wasp-centered satires. Hollywood has conditioned us to movies about the rich that are ethnically and psychologically undifferentiated. For many, Phillip Barry's Holiday might as well be Preston Sturges' The Palm Beach Story, yet those films preserve a remote past. In Metropolitan, Stillman uses that sense of remoteness to convey the foreignness of class perception. Part of the shock of Metropolitan is that the deceptions and strivings of this exclusive world are happening right now.

It may seem heretical to say it, but Metropolitan is a more bold and captivating exploration of an American subculture than its 1990 competition, Martin Scorsese's overweening, macho fiasco Good Fellas. We might have enjoyed a richer film culture had there been a larger response to Whitman's fresh, poignant stereotypes than to Scorsese's overly familiar, violent ones.

Stillman's screenplay is clever not only for its witticisms but also for the sensitive perception of young folk straining for stability. These rich white kids were born into privilege, but they live apprehensively. Insecurity shows in their language and intellectual ambition and in their quite nervous emotional allegiances. What's more memorable: the interrogation of an older clubman about UHBs (Urban Haut Bourgeoisie); Chris Eigemann's pathological but hilarious slander of a rival; or the outsider Tom's recovery of a trashed childhood memento? John Thomas' photography (a highlight of Criterion's DVD release) presents these rich questions with chiaroscuro depth, making the film funny yet dark. The sickest joke of all is that Metropolitan lost 1990's best original screenplay Oscar to Ghost.