Whit Stillman is an original voice in filmmaking. One can think of him as the WASPish Woody Allen, as his camera lens explores the lives of white-collar privileged New Yorkers. His fantastic debut Metropolitan was one of the best films of 1990 and his third film The Last Days of Disco is the flipside of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights in evoking a misunderstood era. But Stillman’s second film Barcelona is less ambitious than these others and does not hold up as well. I think the reason for this is that in Metropolitan, the viewer recognizes that these are obnoxious young Manhattanites, debutantes on the Upper East Side, where they are in their element, and Stillman pokes fun at their lifestyle. Barcelona doesn’t quite get that humour and while it appears on the surface to be a sequel to the first film, a closer inspection will show that he was aiming for just a colourful romantic comedy with intelligent dialogue and one set away from the U.S.
Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman essentially reprise their roles from Metropolitan, this time playing cousins who now live in Barcelona. Nichols plays Ted Boynton, who has a steady job with an American firm. His cousin Fred (Eigeman) is with the navy and has been assigned to the Spanish city. For most of the movie, Fred tags along with Ted as he checks out the ex-pat singles scene, including the lovely Mira Sorvino, and muses about women and the world. The dialogue is intelligent and sharp and because of its Iberian setting, this could certainly be looked upon as an update of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. The nagging problem, however, is that these characters are written as if they are sympathetic, yet they almost exclusively come across as mean-spirited and slightly snobbish. I found myself eventually not caring about these two gentlemen or what happens to them. This is why Barcelona is the weakest of Stillman’s films. Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) in Metropolitan and Alice Kinnon (Chloe Sevigny) in The Last Days of Disco were sympathetic characters, and I wanted to find out what would happen to them. Ted and Fred and their yuppie circle are boring in comparison to the groups in Stillman’s other movies.
Barcelona is at its best when Stillman lets the dialogue shine. If this film had been structured as a ninety minute My Dinner With Andre with the two cousins just chatting about their lives, I would have been enthralled. They talk like wealthy white young men do and what they say is fascinating on that level. But place it in a romantic comedy format and add other characters and Stillman’s sharp and observant script loses what is essentially a talkfest. All the same, it’s difficult to be too harsh on this film, as Stillman is so obviously talented, and all his movies are enjoyable. One hopes his masterpiece is yet to come. I recommend Barcelona on the proviso that you see his other two films first.
