Whit and wisdom
Writer-director Whit Stillman’s debut Metropolitan remains the epitome of class. He explains why
FOR WRITER-DIRECTOR Whit Stillman, Metropolitan is a “Cinderella story of failing upwards”. Made on no budget with no names, Stillman’s 1990 debut feature was rejected by every small distributor before garnering Cannes Film Festival acclaim, fantastic reviews, and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Set in the rarefied high society of New York debutantes, it follows the lives and loves of a group of friends dubbed The Sally Fowler Rat Pack as they size up letting a new member, Tom Townsend (Edward Clements), join their clique. Twenty-eight years on, it remains as funny, smart and irresistible as ever. To mark its Criterion Collection UK debut, Stillman reflects on some of the elements that make it sing.
THE AUTHENTICITY
The moneyed world of the UHB’S (Urban Haute Bourgeoisie), with its student balls, galas and post-party salons, may seem alien, but Metropolitan makes sure you still relate: beneath the dinner jackets and intellectual talk, Stillman imbues it with a gentle, affecting undercurrent of adolescent angst. This is partly because it is ripped from his own life. “In the first year of university, I had been in a bleak state for most of the year,” he says. “I came to New York and had the experience that the Tom Townsend character has. It was the only happy time of that period.” Metropolitan is moving, partly because it is so believable.
THE SCRIPT
After numerous attempts, Metropolitan was the first script Whitman actually finished. “A lot of my screenwriting friends were very negative about it,” he says. “There was a five-page monologue and they said, ‘You can’t do that.’ I wasn’t terribly impressed with my friends’ opinions and went ahead with it.” The resulting screenplay is the film’s chief delight, sharp, literate and gently ironic but alive to very human frailties and foibles.
THE CAST
Metropolitan’s ensemble cast is across-the-board great, breathing life
into Stillman’s ostentatious dialogue and etching delicate but definite variations within the ensemble: perky Sally Fowler (Dylan Hundley), self-aware Fred (Bryan Leder), aspirational Jane (Allison Rutledge-parisi), treacherous Cynthia (Isabel Gillies), opinionated Charlie (Taylor Nicholls, who became a Stillman regular), pure Audrey (Carolyn Farina) and Nick Smith (Christopher Eigeman), the group’s unofficial smart-alec leader. For Stillman, finding the Sally Fowler Rat Pack was a “huge struggle. It seemed to go on forever. We saw 800 people but half the cast were among the first people we saw.” It’s a cast of talented unknowns who sadly remained unknown. “I’m mystified they didn’t get more opportunities,” reflects Stillman. “It’s such a brutal business. I had a 12-year hiatus I wasn’t entirely pleased about. It’s tough when you can only do your thing when only other people can make it possible.”
THE VILLAIN
Even talk-driven indie films need an antagonist and in Will Kempe’s Rik Von Sloneker, Metropolitan has a weaponsgrade bounder. Trashy, smug, womanising, narcissistic, abusive and — worst of all — pony-tailed, Von Sloneker is an archetypal cad, the perfect villain for the Trump age. Studying at Harvard, Stillman knew douches like Rik. “They weren’t bad guys but they were our rivals, they took girls away from us,” he recalls.” Actually they were bad guys but not dastardly.” Kempe was originally cast in the bigger role of Nick. Stillman ultimately decided he was too imposing (you can see these scenes in the Criterion bonus material), but the director says the switch “really worked out well because there is a real electricity and antagonism between Will and Chris”.
THE LOCATIONS
Ironically for a film about the fantastically wealthy, Metropolitan was made for no money at all. Chief amongst the problems was finding swanky interiors to reflect the characters’ privileged lifestyles on no budget. Stillman recalls a stark warning from a woman who offered her apartment for filming: “She said, ‘My husband says he is not interested in any insurance cover, he just wants you to know if anything goes wrong, he’ll kill you.’ What we shot during the first dayand-a-half in that location was so bad because we were all so nervous.” Still, the film is apartment porn: a rare movie where the characters can actually afford the places they hang out in.
METROPOLITAN IS OUT ON 7 MAY ON CRITERION COLLECTION BLU-RAY