Talking, not dancing
The Last Days Of Disco A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1998 By Michael Redman
**1/2 (Out of ****)
All cultures have their mating rituals: a time and place where the eligible get together to strut their stuff and pick whose stuff they like being strutted. In many tribal cultures the men drum at a gathering demonstrating their skills while the women dance for the drummers portraying theirs.
In the urban United States during the late seventies there were few drumming circles so the twenty-somethings headed to discos to find their mates - even very temporary ones. Disco music has been often denigrated as mediocre at best and with good reason. But that's not the point. The music was always only a means. The scene was the important aspect.
For a group of recent college graduates, the chosen ritual meeting place is a club never named but obviously modeled after Club 54 where they gather (assuming that they look cool enough to make it past the doorman) to dance the night away under flashing lights. Their throbbing rhythms are mechanically produced but the ritual is still the same.
Alice (Chloe Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) attempt to climb the corporate ladder at a book publisher by day and work the social ladder in the evenings. At the club they hang with Josh (Matthew Keeslar), an assistant DA; Jimmy (MacKenzie Astin), a junior advertising executive and Des (Christopher Eigeman), the club's assistant manager. They make up a fairly tight-knit group playing together, dancing together and, you guessed it, sleeping together.
Although the film features the expected disco soundtrack, the stars spend much more time talking than they do dancing. This is no "Saturday Night Live" featuring stylized gyrations. Here the dancing is decidedly unglamorized although for a few seconds now and then there is something interesting happening on the dance floor.
To be blunt, these people lead a shallow existence. Some events in their lives are exciting (Josh is investigating the club, Jimmy must sneak clients in, Des has a coke problem and a parade of girlfriends), but they are just wandering through.
What they mostly do is talk and when they're done, they talk some more. Although the conversation is witty, the topics are banal. There's a long discussion deconstructing Lady And The Tramp leading to the conclusion that the film is why girls go for bad boys. A couple debates the technical qualifications of virginity reminding me of numerous deliberations I've heard about sexual activity and which category an evening fell into. "I did this and he did that. Did we have sex?"
With the arrogance of youth, Charlotte wonders if people really ever danced in bars before disco. Josh recounts the beginnings of the musical genre with "Some people don't consider that 'disco' -- because it's good." Being advised by her critical friend that throwing in the word "sexy" as often as possible is a good thing, Alice explains to a one-night stand "there's something sexy about Scrooge McDuck."
They talk about a couple who are cheating on a trial separation by secretly seeing each other. Charlotte explains how VD isn't all bad because you have to inform your previous sexual partners leading to renewed possibilities.
Although the conversations are witty and some of the lines priceless, the intellectualizing about nothing becomes wearing. They are hanging out waiting for something to happen and eventually the audience is doing the same. One of the problems with the movie is that when the plot rears its ugly head, there's not much there. An undercover investigation of the club's finances just gets in the way of the film.
The actors do a fine job of portraying authentic characters. They're not very likable people but they are real. Alice is the closest to someone that you'd want to spend time with but Sevigny's performance is uneven. Occasionally warm and human, she's so odd and quirky that it's uncomfortable to watch.
The guys are all clones of each other. They look and act so much alike that I spent half of the film asking my companion which man was which. In fact nearly everyone on the dance floor looks alike...except the ones that are dressed as "Wizard Of Oz" characters or in a leopard print outfit or naked.
The only exception is Dan (Matt Ross), a co-worker at the book publisher. A political activist, he has a distinctive personality. Until, that is, he is able to get into the club. Then he becomes one more piece of fodder for the scene.
A companion piece to director Whit Stillman's other two films ("Metropolitan", "Barcelona"), the repartee is enjoyable and the look at group social dynamics is almost enticing, but it would be nice if these people had something going in their lives. Oh well, they're young and disco is dying so maybe there's hope.
(Michael Redman has written this column for 23 years and is brave enough to admit that he actually went to a disco club -- twice. Email your confessions to redman@bvoice.com)
[The appeared in the 7/2/98 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bvoice.com]
-- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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