THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO (1998, Whit Stillman)

 

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Two young women hang out in a Manhattan nightclub in 1980.

Starring  Chloë Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Beals

Written by  Whit Stillman

Produced by  Whit Stillman   

Duration  113 minutes   

 

 

Quentin Tarantino likes movies. This we know. And his genre influences are clear, including blaxploitation (JACKIE BROWN), Asian-influenced action (KILL BILL), and men-on-a-mission (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS).

But there's one movie, one specific movie, that Tarantino champions more than any other. It's the one at the centre of this quote:

"When I start to get serious about a girl, I show her RIO BRAVO. And she better fuckin' like it."

(I feel the same way about COMMANDO; fortunately, Mrs Last grew up watching it.)

The director has repeatedly tried to replicate the siege portion of the film he treasures so: with RESERVOIR DOGS, with THE HATEFUL EIGHT, with his screenplay for FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.

But on a wider level, RIO BRAVO also belongs to a particular sub-genre: the hangout movie, a term that is widely believed to have been coined by Tarantino himself.

The hangout movie has taken many forms over the years. RIO BRAVO is broadly about John Wayne hanging out in a frontier town. Beyond Tarantino's own contributions to the form – PULP FICTION, ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD, the non-car parts of DEATH PROOF – other notable hangout movies include:

KIDS (1995): Hanging out with reckless, sex-crazed, skateboarding teenage delinquents.

CLERKS (1994): Hanging out with retail workers discussing pop culture and promiscuous ex-girlfriends.

DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993): Hanging out on the last day of school in the mid-'70s.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985): Hanging out and making new friends during Saturday detention.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973): Hanging out in the early '60s, mostly in cars.

EASY RIDER (1969): Hanging out in the late '60s, mostly on motorbikes.

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995): Hanging out all night in Vienna with someone you just met while Interrailing.

FRIDAY (1995): Hanging out in South Central LA on the last day of the working week.

HOOPER (1978): Hanging out with Burt Reynolds doing lots of stunts.

SWINGERS (1996): Hanging out with Vince Vaughn trying to pick up ladies and saying things like "You're so money, baby!"

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998): Hanging out bowling while entangled inside a neo-noir mystery.

EMPIRE RECORDS (1995): Hanging out in a record store for the last time before it closes down.

DINER (1982): Hanging out with one half of the Wet Bandits, Mickey Rourke when he looked good, Steve Guttenberg and Burke from ALIENS.

SIDEWAYS (2004): Hanging out in Napa Valley getting tipsy on free wine samples.

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMOUNT HIGH (1982): Hanging out at school.

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986): Hanging out and not going to school.

SUPERBAD (2007): Hanging out after school and trying to get laid.

BOOKSMART (2019): Same again, but with girls.

And so here we have THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, which is 'hanging out in a New York nightclub in the early '80s'.

Our main hanger-outers are played by Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale. Both are poorly paid readers at a Manhattan publisher who are trying to get more out of their lives, including their night lives. They regularly go to the same disco, when they can get past the snooty ponytailed doorman, to meet various guys: ad guys, marketing guys, Wall Street guys.

Not a lot actually happens in this movie. It's certainly sharply written and well-observed, with some amusing lines. But that's about it. Sevigny seems vaguely out if it at all times, as if she was going Method during all those trips to the bar. Beckinsale, meanwhile, struggles with dialogue seemingly written to be read rather than spoken aloud. She has this oddly measured manner, saddled with words like 'several' and 'somewhat' and tin-eared expressions like 'terribly encouraging'.

I'm not sure how I feel about hangout movies, overall. The thing is, you have real life to just hang out with people. Why are we instead watching a movie? Isn't it because we want a story? Where life is no longer random and meaningless, but instead everything happens for a reason, people learn lessons and the heroes always win?

These kinds of casual, unhurried movies go against the screenwriting manuals. Those things a script is supposed to have to 'work': structure, escalating tension, stakes, emotional journeys, all that stuff.

And yet, hang out movies do still work a lot of the time, on the strength of the writing and the characters. I definitely like most of the titles on the above list. The theory goes that the more you enjoy the company of these people, the more you will enjoy their antics.

But did I like spending time with the characters in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO? Um, not as such.

This was the third film by Whit Stillman. He specialises in chronicling the lives of vacuous yuppies, calling DISCO the last entry in his 'doomed bourgeois in love' trilogy. You get the impression the writer/director doesn't expect us to like these insufferable people. Which really doesn't help matters.

And I have to say, I found the disco soundtrack kind of annoying. By 1980, when this movie takes place, we could have had something a bit harder, a bit more modern sounding. Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' had been out for years by then, and its producer Giorgio Moroder was starting to establish the mainstream electronic sound. Instead, we get fluff like 'Freak Out', 'He's the Greatest Dancer', 'Good Times', etc.

Not really the kind of place I'd like to hang out, I'm afraid.

Two stars out of five.

 

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  I don't know/care enough about the timeline of the musical genre to judge.

What would a movie called THE FIRST DAYS OF DISCO be about?  It would have to be set a decade earlier, I guess.

Previously: THE LAST SHIFT

Next time:  THE LAST EXORCISM: PART II

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