Metropolitan, a successful film about failure

Whit Stillman's Metropolitan (1990) follows newcomer Tom Townsend's (Edward Clements) relationship with a group of teenage friends during a debutant season in the late 80's/early 90's.  The group's witty dialogue and overly formal interactions seem right out of a Jane Austin novel. In many ways they exist out of time, their interests in literature and social elitism are of another century. The continuity editing, fades between scenes, and simplistic camera movement resonate with older films made in the American studio system, adding to yet another time period to the mix. The classy yet blandly furnished apartment settings could be a set constructed all in one studio. In actuality nothing could be further from the truth, one of the film's many paradoxes. Metropolitan was filmed on a mere $50,000. Stillman shot mostly in borrowed apartments or out on New York's streets in a rogue, on location style of shooting that Stillman later reflected was just glorified sneaking around. With its relatively low budget,  Metropolitan has got to be the cheapest film about rich people ever made.

"We were essentially stealing shots with walkie talkies in our pockets telling us to go because the camera's rolling. The whole thing, it just felt like this insane lark."- Whit Stillman

Metropolitan is a balance of postmodernist existentialism and satire of the young, wealthy, and intellectual. The film's characters are sympathetic yet frequently mocked by circumstance.  They are clearly stuck in an era which they do not belong. They have trouble functioning in present day New York, outside of their sheltered world of deb after parties. The final scene, where the hero rushes to save the girl, is complicated by the fact that he does not have a drivers license.  A comedic montage set to an upbeat Cha-cha shows Tom and enemy turned ally, Charlie Black (Taylor Nichols), enter multiple car rentals in vain. The film's characters, self aware as always, comment on their own romanticizing of the past.

"So many things which were better in the past have been abandoned for supposed convenience."-  Nick Smith (Chris Eigeman) 

Indeed, the bourgeoisie, like many old things, are beginning to be abandoned for their lack of practicality. The world no longer has a purpose for these young, educated people who were so expensive to create. The kids are more aware than anyone that the "preppy" class is being fazed out for something more pragmatic. They've started off so high that there's not really anywhere to go but down.  Nick claims they are all doomed to failure but an ex-preppy Tom and Charlie later encounter informs them that this is not the case.

"We simply fail without being doomed." 

The film's exploration of the existential questions about failure and fate ends without an answer.  Stillman chooses to end the film not after Tom and Charlie barge in and save innocent, well read, Audrey Rouget (Carolyn Farina) from the sliminess of Rick Von Slonecker, but with the three remaining members of the now disintegrated friend group stranded on the side of a road. This ending seems to play on Truffaut's famous ending to The 400 Blows,  however, instead of running along the road like Truffaut's character, they walk, melancholy and disillusioned. The effect is the same, however: a cinematic "well, what now?"

Though at first I found the character's elitism and wealth alienating, the message hits close to home. As someone about to go off to film school and spend a great sum of money on a brain I'm not entirely sure the world needs, the impracticality of intellectualism and existential thought frightens me.  I'd be terrified at this prospect if it weren't for the fact that I really like camping and I suppose I wouldn't mind doing it all the time and also in a van.