The Last Days of Disco

Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco concerns the New York nightlife of a pack of early-'80s preppies, including two book-business tyros (tender Chloe Sevigny and wicked Kate Beckinsale), an assistant DA (Matt Keeslar), and a nightclub flunky (Chris Eigeman, beautifully sardonic). They fall in and out of love, suffer and betray, and prattle dryly on the semiotics of the vodka tonic and the subtext of Lady and the Tramp. In this comedy of manners, disco is neither dead genre nor sexy trend, but an existential fact: By playing the refined chatter over a deep beat, Stillman evokes the hopeful melancholy of world-weary kids searching, a la Chic, for good times. A-