The Last Days of Disco fits in with today’s retro-trend. Where Todd Haynes evokes the period of Glam Rock in his campy Velvet Goldmine (see there), Stillman goes back in his more traditional and nostalgic film to the start of the eighties. In the last months of the disco era, a popular dance club becomes the heart of the nightlife of a group of kids who have just arrived in Manhattan. They have just graduated and are trying to find a way in their lives that can be pretty confusing. The pretty, rather shy Alice (Chloe Sevigny) and the extravert, stunning Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) live on their meagre wages from a publishing house and are forced to share their crowded apartment with Holly. In the club they meet Jimmy, who recruits people for the disco, and handsome lawyer Tom, both former university friends of Des, who is part-owner of the club.After Metropolitan and Barcelona, films about the era when social life still operated in groups, The Last Days of Disco is the last film in Stillman’s three ‘comedies of nightlife’. His films are populated by rather giggly young people who do however hold witty and intelligent conversations. Much praised in this film are the cast (all young and rising actors and actresses), the art direction, the costumes and the fabulous soundtrack (29 classic disco songs), all of which contributes to the extravagant portrayal of the era.
