A strange movie, full of conversations about crushes and philosophy and the assessment of others. The dozen or so people we meet are all pretty rich and preppy Manhattanites. Metropolitans, you might say. Or, as one of THEM says, UHBs -- for urban haute bourgeoisie. Except for Tom (Edward Clements) who is accidentally swept up in the round of after-parties during the débutante season.
Tom is in a position similar to that of Nick Carraway in "The Great Gatsby." He's smart and educated and he has a little money, or at least his father does, but he's alien to this lifestyle. The others try to help him out. Instead of renting his tuxedo, he can simply buy one second hand from the same costumier. And he really SHOULD have a fashionably black overcoat instead of wearing that Columbo-type raincoat, even if, as he insists, "it has a lining." Everybody talks a lot. They don't smoke dope or get drunk, except for one of the more fatuous of the group who vomits in the bathroom sink and fails to deliver an important message.
There are some remarks that were over my head. "That's not Manhattan, that's Southampton." Well, I know both places, except that from my perspective they weren't that much different.
If you excise the sophisticated conversation and boil what's left down to Basic English, you probably won't find much difference between these UHBs and the people who jostle you on the subway. But there is as much diversity among them as there is among the rest of us. One or two of them are to the upper-middle-class what Stanley Kowalski is to the workers of America. Still, they're just as mixed up as we are -- always falling in love with the wrong person, uncertain of how they're perceived. The one almost-constantly-visible distinction is that, for them, social class and breeding are what sociologists call a "primary trait." It's what defines them. They are obsessed with class in a way that the rest of us simply are not. We take our miserables lives, our out-of-date clothes, the cockroaches, for granted. They take their goyim naches very seriously.
In this, they reminded me of a class of geniuses I once had an opportunity to observe in college. Here they are, a dozen trembling ectomorphs, teen agers, deep into integral calculus and pimples -- and the worst thing they can call each other in an argument is "stupid." When the layout of the movie became clear I had a sense of impending doom. Nothing but talk and intrigue. But it managed to hold my interest throughout. If I was never gripped, neither was I bored. Maybe a background in cultural anthropology helps.
Tom is in a position similar to that of Nick Carraway in "The Great Gatsby." He's smart and educated and he has a little money, or at least his father does, but he's alien to this lifestyle. The others try to help him out. Instead of renting his tuxedo, he can simply buy one second hand from the same costumier. And he really SHOULD have a fashionably black overcoat instead of wearing that Columbo-type raincoat, even if, as he insists, "it has a lining." Everybody talks a lot. They don't smoke dope or get drunk, except for one of the more fatuous of the group who vomits in the bathroom sink and fails to deliver an important message.
There are some remarks that were over my head. "That's not Manhattan, that's Southampton." Well, I know both places, except that from my perspective they weren't that much different.
If you excise the sophisticated conversation and boil what's left down to Basic English, you probably won't find much difference between these UHBs and the people who jostle you on the subway. But there is as much diversity among them as there is among the rest of us. One or two of them are to the upper-middle-class what Stanley Kowalski is to the workers of America. Still, they're just as mixed up as we are -- always falling in love with the wrong person, uncertain of how they're perceived. The one almost-constantly-visible distinction is that, for them, social class and breeding are what sociologists call a "primary trait." It's what defines them. They are obsessed with class in a way that the rest of us simply are not. We take our miserables lives, our out-of-date clothes, the cockroaches, for granted. They take their goyim naches very seriously.
In this, they reminded me of a class of geniuses I once had an opportunity to observe in college. Here they are, a dozen trembling ectomorphs, teen agers, deep into integral calculus and pimples -- and the worst thing they can call each other in an argument is "stupid." When the layout of the movie became clear I had a sense of impending doom. Nothing but talk and intrigue. But it managed to hold my interest throughout. If I was never gripped, neither was I bored. Maybe a background in cultural anthropology helps.