The Last Days of Disco

The Last Days of Disco is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Whit Stillman, and loosely based on his travels and experiences in various nightclubs in Manhattan, including Studio 54. Starring Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale, the film follows a group of Ivy League and Hampshire College graduates falling in and out of love in the disco scene of New York City in the early 1980s. The Last Days of Disco is the third film (following Metropolitan and Barcelona) in what Stillman calls his "Doomed-Bourgeois-in-Love series". The three films are independent of each other except for cameo appearances of some common characters. According to Stillman, the idea for Disco was originally conceived after the shooting of Barcelona disco scenes. In 2000, Stillman published a novelization of the film. The film was released theatrically in the United States on June 12, 1998; its DVD and video releases followed in 1999. The DVD releases eventually went out of print, and the film was widely unavailable for home video purchase until it was picked up by The Criterion Collection and released in a director-approved special edition on August 25, 2009. Along with Metropolitan and Barcelona, a print of The Last Days of Disco resides in the permanent film library of the Museum of Modern Art. Plot In the "very early 1980s", Alice Kinnon and Charlotte Pingress, recent Hampshire College graduates, work as poorly paid readers for a New York City publisher. After work one night, they enter an exclusive disco nightclub where Alice hopes to socialize with Jimmy Steinway, who uses the club to entertain his advertising clients. Barred from bringing clients, Jimmy is eventually kicked out by his friend Des McGrath, a manager at the club whose job is in jeopardy for allowing in Jimmy and his clients. After Jimmy leaves, Alice takes Charlotte's advice to go home with her second choice, Tom Platt. At work the next morning, Alice and Charlotte ask other editors how to fast-track their careers. Unable to afford rent on their own, they move in together with a third girl, Holly. Despite Alice's reluctance, they settle on a railroad apartment.