There's something really sexy about Scrooge McDuck: In honor of actress Chloë Sevigny's birthday this week, we offer up 'The Last Days of Disco,' Whit Stillman's critically acclaimed and highly quotable 1998 gem, our free movie pick of the day.The film follows a band of verbose, upwardly mobile young professionals as they navigate Manhattan's murky, often shallow relationship waters during disco's waning days. Sevigny stars as Alice, the beautifully intelligent yet socially awkward aspiring book editor, and Kate Beckinsale puts on a convincing American accent as the self-absorbed and privileged Charlotte, Alice's publishing cohort and frenemy.
The cast also includes Robert Sean Leonard as a not-so-clean lawyer with a heart for environmental issues, MacKenzie Astin as an ambitious junior ad man and Stillman regular Chris Eigeman as a boorish disco club manager. (The movie also featured Sevigny alongside Matt Ross, who plays one of her co-workers, long before they became brother and sister on the HBO drama 'Big Love.')
Stillman, who also wrote and directed 'Metropolitan' and 'Barcelona,' provides a sharp, witty look at this group's bourgeois idiosyncrasies as the highly-educated college grads grope and fumble for purpose and meaning while negotiating exclusive velvet ropes and even trickier yuppie constricts. Not only does it revive the put-on glitz and glamor of the era, 'Disco' also infuses these moments with memorable, spot-on quips ("I'm not an addict; I'm a habitual user" and "I'm a fully employed person who just happens to not have a job right now") and rambling diatribes (the environmental impact of 'Bambi,'' the gender politics of 'Lady and the Tramp') that still remain fresh and relevant today.
Watch 'The Last Days of Disco' now on SlashControl!
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