I could yammer a bit about the reasons this moment worked for me so well–the whole thing of, “There must be a way to make this high more intense!”, the idiot ingenuity of it, the perfect timing of his miserable snuffling snort. Then looks up at her, with these giant eyes: I’m trusting you on this, anxious, struggling. He: “Do you think it’s really true that coffee has the same neurological effect as cocaine?” She affirms this, and he lowers his head to his cup. My favorite moment: Des and Alice (Chloe Sevigny) are having coffee together. She thinks she’s a self-aware villainess but she’s actually more of a disingenuous, striving naif. Out of the main five characters Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale, china-doll pretty and ’80s-flick fierce, like a rich girl in a John Hughes film, thanks for this) tries the least, but that’s mostly because she lacks self-awareness. I loved all of the characters except the Robert Sean Leonard one, who is just really, really hateable. There are ways of doing tragedy or satire where it’s about people willfully being awful, but I think my favorite tragedies and satires are about how many important things we botch when we’re trying very hard not to. I like how almost all of these characters are trying, in one way or another.
I don’t associate disco with order at all. I guess since the (lovely) religious hints connect religion to order in the soul, a peaceful ordering of our loves rather than a chaotic and hurtful welter, I maybe would have liked more about why the main religiously-attuned guy loves disco so much.
I don’t dislike this, I just found it weird in an intriguing way. Whereas these characters are pretty much always working at the disco: literally with Des (Chris Eigeman), who’s I think a gatekeeper or bouncer or something?, and Jimmy the adman who takes his clients there for a night on the town but also figuratively, since all of the characters are pushing for relationships and social position. No ambitions, barely any self, just music and you inside it. I love the ecstasy and no-consequences, no-gravity feeling of disco, the release. And the things I love most about disco, when I love it, don’t really make an appearance in the film. Josh (Matt Keeslar), and unlikely love interest Dan (Matt Ross) - grapple with romance, flat-sharing, pregnancy, venereal disease and frugging to a selection of toe-tapping beats over the course of two hugely entertaining hours.ĭespite its occasionally complicated plot and over-intrusive support cast (with this many characters vying for attention, proceedings become a bit cluttered at times), Disco works best as a compendium of delightful, beautifully acted set pieces - Alice's attempt to come to terms with her virginity loss is touchingly comic, while a brilliantly funny group dissection of the canine values displayed by Lady And The Tramp ranks among this film-year's most inspired moments.īy choosing well-rounded, likeable characters (even the mean-spirited Charlotte, played by Beckinsale with an impeccable transatlantic twang), an excellent script and lesser known sounds of disco, (not an Abba tune in sight), Stillman has created an affectionate, original and highly memorable tribute to a bygone age.Strangely, the paeans to disco never get specific–you could replace disco with anything, even punk.
In fact, there's a pervading sense of dèja vu here, as Beckinsale, Sevigny and their eclectic, intellectual dancefloor companions - bisexual bouncer Des (Eigemann), "dancing ad man" Jimmy (Mackenzie Astin) cartoon-fixated lawyer Tom (Robert Sean Leonard), upstanding D.A. Those familiar with Stillman will recognise his leisurely, cerebral brand of filmmaking, his strong characterisation and sparky screen chatter coming across as effectively as in his previous two outings. Underpaid juniors in a New York publishing office by day, at night they are transformed into sequined disco dollies, hanging out under the glitterball with the assortment of old college chums, upwardly mobile types and scuzzballs who populate their favourite club. It's the very early 80s, and the disco era is struggling to survive, but that doesn't deter the world-beatingly bitchy Charlotte (Beckinsale) and her put-upon, socially inept best pal Alice (Sevigny) from their nocturnal activities. Cinema's current nostalgia fixation may have reached saturation point of late, but just as the novelty threatens to wear thin, cult American director Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, Barcelona) injects new life into the flagging trend with his best, most commercial offering to date.
0 kommentar(er)
