Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan distinguishes itself above most other comedies by simultaneously taking great joy in humor for its own sake and by being “about a lot more than detachable collars.” Watching this film will convince you that one of the most amusing things in the world can be something as simple as participating in a conversation. Yet often the resonance of a comedy will last longest when it also deals with those things which determine how we live each day; things such as moral virtue, social convention, and the other-than-physical nature of the relation between the sexes. Thus Nick explains to Tom, “I’m not entirely joking.”
—J.A.A. Purves