Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Don't Believe the Hype

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is a review of "Damsels in Distress" and "The Last Days of Disco", two films by writer/director Whit Stillman.Released in 2011, "Damsels" stars Greta Gerwig as Violet, the leader of a band of young women. As they have been deeply scarred in the past, the girls invent new personas for themselves and attempt to help other wounded people by embarking on various altruistic endeavours. One of their schemes involve "inventing a new form of dance", in which dance becomes akin to a political movement used to spread "togetherness, love and happiness".Stillman's godfather, sociologist E Digby Baltzell, authored "Aristocracy and Caste in America" and helped popularise the term "Wasp". Stillman's films, meanwhile, tend to focus on the haute bourgeoisie, though he's more obsessed with questioning the naive assumptions they hold toward responsibility, culpability and leadership. In this regard, his films are preoccupied with characters whose well intentioned good deeds lead to disasters, or seemingly horrible characters who inadvertently help others. The intentions behind deeds are also examined: is altruism really altruism if it's unconsciously rooted in selfishness? Why do good deeds do damage? And why do the noblest of intentions oft lead to unforeseen disasters? All these questions arise during one subplot in which the girls date boyfriends who are less cool and less intelligent than they are (their intention is to transform the boys into something better). In another subplot, the girls hand out soap to unhygienic male students. Both plans backfire spectacularly, with the soap turned into a weapon/game and the girls' relationships with the guys having less to do with reformation than their own personal insecurities and hangups. The film then ends with our heroes dancing to "Things are looking up", originally sung by Fred Astaire in the 1937 film "A Damsel In Distress".Stillman was born into a very politically active, radically left-wing family. Many critics tout him as being one of the few "intellectual conservative directors", whilst others see his films as being reactionary responses to his parental upbringing. This is, after all, a guy whose films are often about "vindictiveness and self-centeredness unintentionally benefiting others" and "well-intentioned meddling causing damage", which is of course the credo of many far right groups. But Stillman really embodies a postmodern scepticism regarding both the political left and right. "When you're an egoist, none of the harm you do is intentional," characters in his earlier pictures state. And later: "Today barbarism is cloaked with self-righteousness and moral superiority." Elsewhere he has characters defending conservative values (marriage, monogamy etc) because, though they're simply rooted in "ritualistically enforced behaviour", such behaviour was itself "once deemed unconventional but has been adopted because it works for society". This argument is of course true, but also wrong in many instances. Stillman's films tend to present both sides of the coin.These contradictions become most apparent in Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco". Set in the mid 1980s, "Disco" centres on a group of articulate urbanites. They're descendants of wealth, but have a hard time making ends meet. This at first seems like an apologia for the upper middle classes, until various mouthpieces in the film mock the "troubles" of our cast, even as Stillman sympathises with them.The film then watches as the college graduates of the Me Generation set about co-opting disco trends and the totems of the sexual revolution. The "openness" of these social movements, however, quickly gets perverted into an arena of exclusivity, money, rules and regulations. The result is the creation of a false elite: those cool, attractive or pushy enough to get into the clubs and those willing to subject themselves to the club's arbitrary, superficial and capricious rules.The film then contrasts two characters. One's Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), who's elegant, sophisticated, and always unintentionally harming others with her needle-like tongue. The other's Alice (Chloë Sevigny), a quietly sensitive woman who has no idea what the sexual revolution means for people like her. Acting free and sexy gets her stigmatised as a whore, whilst acting bookish and intellectual gets her stigmatised a prude. The disco dance floors epitomise this new sexual minefield, where there are no known steps, no clear partners, where attentions constantly shift, where no one touches for long, yet where there seemingly exists no boundaries."Control your own destiny. Don't wait for guys to call." Charlotte says, which is your typical Stillman "fact", in that its conservative counterpoint is then shown to be also true. Infinite choice has its own problems and self expression need not be free but a product of influence.Interestingly, Alice embodies a modernist sensibility. She has standards, values and is constantly judging and categorising. Charlotte embodies a postmodern subjectivity, which, of course, is couched in a aura of "nonjudgementality", in which its deemed okay to insult and criticise because what's said is always just a "silly personal opinion" anyway. Charlotte's lines frequently highlight this contradiction: "People hate being criticised" she says, before complaining that Alice was "too moralistic and judgemental in college". Later Alice sleeps with a character called Tom, who promptly ditches her when Alice follows Charlote's advice to become a sexual predator. "I crave sentient individuals who don't abandon their principles," Tom says, disgusted with the cheapening of romance and relations, whilst, ironically, sticking to modern conventions of "openness" with these lacerating speeches (and it is he who gives her a STD!). "I'm beginning to think," Alice later says, "that maybe the old system of people getting married based on mutual respect and shared aspirations, and slowly, over time, earning each other's love and admiration, worked the best." For Stillman, mores, commitments, values and manners have everything to do with what distinguishes us as human, they're just very fickle, unreliable things.8.5/10 - Worth one viewing.

The plausible reason the Disco's gone in the 1980's, the period portrayed in the movie, was that people needed something different, something that would define a new era with new songs, new groups of people and many other things. Disco was becoming an corny attitude in the 1980's. Now we're entering in the movie. The reason given by the writer and director (this is my opinion based on the way I saw what was showed on the screen) Whit Stillman why Disco was through is that everybody focused on their work, they didn't have much time to go party, to dance and everybody's frustrated in their relationships (sexual relations and/or not helpful friends). Here we met all sort of characters, liars, arrogant, stressed, non trustful at all, but lacked one to make this movie nicer: the likable character. Where's it? Where was it? Why a friendly and nice, she or he, didn't appear in the whole movie? I didn't liked any of the characters and even the one I liked it in the beginning, turn out be a jerk.The ensemble cast is overwhelming. Chlöe Sevigny ("Boys Don't Cry"), Kate Beckinsale ("The Aviator"), Mackenzie Astin ("The Evening Star"), Robert Sean Leonard ("Dead Poets Society"), David Thornton ("Alpha Dog"), Matt Keeslar ("Splendor"), Chris Eigeman (I didn't remembered any other work with him but he's got a tremendous job in this movie), Matt Ross ("American Psycho") and Jennifer Beals ("Flashdance"). But none of them has a likable character. It's almost impossible to relate to one of them. The story itself was boring. People come and go out of the blue and their motivations on doing things are unfunny, ruthless and without a single care to bring the audience to the experience. The female characters are completely dead inside, talk to much and overreact to a simple touch of a stranger, or look into someone in the eyes and make an character judgment simply calling him as gay or non trustful. The ideological aspects in this sad movie doesn't work. If we're watching a movie that the main plot is to tell about the last days of disco why we're seeing people who aren't having fun, aren't dancing (dance in this movie was not convincing) and their only preoccupation is how to pay the rent? Only the discussion between "The Lady and The Tramp" was effective and kind of funny. I'm giving 5 stars to it because it was not a case of bad acting, and not even bad directing. The songs played in the movie are quite good but it lacked joyful moments where it could be played in a memorable way. The main problem is an story with no positive characters. In the middle of "The Last Days of Disco" there's a conversation between Kate and Chlöe and one of their bosses about how to make a best-seller's book. And the response of their boss is partially right and the writer of this movie should have thought about it and include some nice characters in it. Then this would be a hit! 5/10

I do not believe anyone could make a film more boring than "The Last Days of Disco" if they had a thousand attempts. This pic works better than a sedative to numb the senses.If you manage to stay awake for the first hour and a half, you may then be treated to a few clever lines and original diatribes. Most of the movie is horribly contrived however.What really kills the film is the hopelessly uninteresting characters. The audience will quickly forget who was who, if they ever bother to figure it out. A terrible excuse for a disco flick.Friday, November 27, 1998 - Astor Theatre StKilda

I cannot believe that less than 4 thousand people saw this film and it rates a 6.A classic tale of young men and women growing up in New York, the hunt for hang out spots, meaningful relationships, career advancement - what's to not like? Chloe Sevigny is luminous as Alice - vulnerable, impressionable, confused. Kate Beckinsale has done her finest role ever as Charlotte. She is unintentionally bitchy, destructive and selfish - reminds me of all the harm that one can do without ever wanting to. Chis Eigman is brilliant as Des - he was the one to watch in Metropolitan and he is the one who walks away with the kudos here. Matt Keeslar does very well as the slightly disturbed, taking no for an answer Josh.There is cynicism is in the real life moments of drugs, sex, disease - but the film is quite naive and sweet in how the good guys get the goodies in the end.The mood is well done - the disco club exciting, but the conversations in the club were almost incomprehensible over the music. This is one film that needs to be out of DVD so I can watch it again with subtitles. It was delightful!