Metropolitan (1989)

Carolyn Farina: Audrey Rouget

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Quotes 

• Audrey Rouget : [after Tom disappears with Serena]  Tom's not used to places like this. Maybe he went through one of those stairway doors that lock from the inside.

  Nick Smith : He can't get locked in. I used to have to use those doors when people forgot to invite me to their parties.

• Audrey Rouget : By Tolstoy, "War and Peace" and by Jane Austen, "Persuasion" and "Mansfield Park".

  Tom Townsend : "Mansfield Park"? You've got to be kidding.

  Audrey Rouget : No.

  Tom Townsend : But it's a notoriously bad book. Even Lionel Trilling, one of her greatest admirers, thought that.

  Audrey Rouget : Well, if Lionel Trilling thought that, he's an idiot.

  Tom Townsend : The whole story revolves around, what the immorality of a group of young people putting on a play.

  Audrey Rouget : In the context of the novel it makes perfect sense.

  Tom Townsend : But the context of the novel, and nearly everything Jane Austen wrote is near ridiculous from today's perspective.

  Audrey Rouget : Has it ever occurred to you that today, looked at from Jane Austen's perspective would look even worse?

• Audrey Rouget : What Jane Austen novels have you read?

  Tom Townsend : None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.

• Tom Townsend : Pomfret. Where did you go?

  Jane Clark : Farmington. Both of us did.

  Tom Townsend : Did you know Serena Slocum there?

  Jane Clark : The inevitable question.

  Tom Townsend : What?

  Jane Clark : All the guys ask that. Serena had an incredible number of boyfriends. At least 20. She could manage it because they were all at different schools and she wrote letters incredibly quickly - three in a single study hall. She became really famous. It's incredible how naive some guys are. How do you know Serena?

  Audrey Rouget : [Interrupting]  Actually, that might give someone the wrong impression. She wrote a lot of guys, but I'm sure she liked some a lot more than others.

  Jane Clark : Oh, you think so? I never noticed that. How do you know Serena?

  Tom Townsend : I was one of her boyfriends.

  Jane Clark : [Taken aback]  Oh! You must be "Pomfret." Your letters were really good.

  Audrey Rouget : Yes.

• Audrey Rouget : People see the harm in what excessive candor can do.

• [first lines] 

  Mrs. Rouget : You can't listen to what your younger brother has to say. I can't think of anyone less an authority of female anatomy.

  Audrey Rouget : He can see... It's hideous.

  Mrs. Rouget : No, it isn't. You're being very subjective. You know, there was a survey of girls your age some years ago and nearly all of them were convinced that either their behinds, or their noses, were grotesquely oversized. And there was no apparent correlation between this conviction and their actual size.

  Audrey Rouget : Really? They did a survey of that?

  Mrs. Rouget : Yes. Why don't you show me the dress again?

• Audrey Rouget : I think my father considers himself a failure although I don't think he's one. I guess few people's lives match their own expectations.

• Audrey Rouget : I read that Lionel Trilling essay you mentioned. You really like Trilling?

  Tom Townsend : Yes.

  Audrey Rouget : I think he's very strange. He says that nobody could like the heroine of "Mansfield Park". I like her! Then he goes on and on about how we modern people of today with our modern attitudes, bitterly resent "Mansfield Park" because its heroine is virtuous? What's wrong with a novel having a virtuous heroine?

  Tom Townsend : His point is that the novel's premise - that there's something immoral in a group of young people putting on a play - is simply absurd.

  Audrey Rouget : You found Fanny Price unlikable?

  Audrey Rouget : She sounds pretty unbearable. But I haven't read the book.

• [last lines] 

  Tom Townsend : Did anything happen?

  Audrey Rouget : Of course not.

  Tom Townsend : You mean you were never interested in Von Sloneker at all?

  [pause as Audrey looks ambivalently towards him] 

  Tom Townsend : They why did you come out here?

  Audrey Rouget : To get a suntan... and the whole thing with the Rat Pack was getting claustrophobic. And Cynthia insisted I come. She's terribly impressed with Rick.

  Tom Townsend : It's not something Jane Austen would have done.

  Audrey Rouget : No. I suppose Europe is over there.

  [points across the ocean] 

  Tom Townsend : No. That would be Brazil. Europe is more that way. You're really going back next week?

  Audrey Rouget : I think so.

  Tom Townsend : What can you study in France that you can't study here?

  Audrey Rouget : French. Actually, I was thinking of coming back when this semester ends.

  Tom Townsend : I was thinking of going over. Not necessarily to Grenoble, but to France and Italy... though my resources are limited.

  Audrey Rouget : There are some awfully cheap airfares these days during the winter season. It seems a shame not to take advantage of them.

  Tom Townsend : That's how I feel.

  Audrey Rouget : Do you really think I'm flat-chested?

  Tom Townsend : I haven't really thought about it. Well, I shouldn't say that. The thing is, you look great... and that's what's important. You don't want to overdo it.

• Audrey Rouget : I like the French.

  Tom Townsend : Really?

  Audrey Rouget : At least those I met in Grenoble.

  Tom Townsend : Actually, the only girl I ever knew who studied in France stayed over there and got married. So I guess she liked the French too.

  Audrey Rouget : I'm not sure I like them that much.

• Audrey Rouget : One thing I like about him is he doesn't say all the expected things. He doesn't just agree with everything everyone else is saying.

  Jane Clark : That's true. He disagrees with everything everyone else says.

• Audrey Rouget : My feeling is that what happened last night has no real significance. It was just bad luck that Fred got sick.

  Jane Clark : I can't believe you're talking like this. He totally humiliated you last night.

  Audrey Rouget : Whether I've been humiliated or not is something I can judge for myself. And besides I don't think Tom's that way.

  Jane Clark : Well I'm not sure you can judge for yourself. Be careful, Audrey; there's something dubious about Tom.

  Audrey Rouget : What?

  Jane Clark : This whole thing about his being a radical when he's obviously not. And being over Serena when he's obviously not.

  Audrey Rouget : Everyone has some contradictions.

  Jane Clark : Anybody with as many conflicts as Tom, even if he seems nice, is better not to get involved with.

  Sally Fowler : By those standards, none of us should get involved with anyone.

  Jane Clark : Well, you're probably right, but in this case certainly.

  Audrey Rouget : Tom is the only guy I've liked in my whole life; I'm not going to forget about him because of some apparent inconsistencies.

  Jane Clark : You hardly even know him.

  Audrey Rouget : I know him very well.

  Jane Clark : You couldn't. You only just met him.

  Audrey Rouget : Well, I do.

• Audrey Rouget : Life is melodramatic, if you look at the whole sweep of it.

• Nick Smith : Polly was a bit of a masochist and prone to drink too much. Von Sloneker exploited this to get her drunk and had her - do you know what "pulling a train" means?

  Audrey Rouget : I don't think so.