Stillman sketches his characters with gentle humor, capturing not only their foibles and foolishnesses but the earnest intentions behind them.

| Jun 15, 2020

Metropolitan is a melancholic lament for not-quite-doomed youth-a self-styled new "lost generation" that isn't really lost, but might just never have a purpose.

| Jun 15, 2020

Stillman hasn't made as hermetically appealing a movie since, but for those lamenting the absence of the written word in modern comedy - rather than the improvisationally blurted-out kind - "Metropolitan" makes for delightful memory-lane viewing.

| Aug 13, 2015

Metropolitan has always felt like a movie that exists in a strange, insular little bubble of its own, utterly divorced from the personal experience of virtually anyone who watches it.

| Original Score: A | Aug 6, 2015

It might make you long for a return to movies in which teens have a greater vocabulary than their parents.

| Aug 4, 2015

Stillman films these rounds of romance and jealousy, old mind-sets and new friendships, as scintillating dialectical jousts in which verbal blows take the place of action and leave lasting emotional wounds.

| Aug 3, 2015

Whit Stillman's "urban haute bourgeoisie" are redeemed because the filmmaker takes custody of them, their idiosyncrasies, their flaws.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 2, 2015

Unusual subject matter handled with competent self-assurance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 18, 2008

Whit Stillman's crafty independent feature about wealthy Park Avenue teenagers and a middle-class boy who joins their ranks over one Christmas vacation is certainly well imagined, and impressively acted by a cast of newcomers.

| Jul 18, 2008

A witty, urbane portrait of Manhattan's debutante scene.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 18, 2008

It's the beautifully chiselled dialogue -- counterpointed by near-static camerawork and a nicely mannered acting style -- that remains the chief attraction.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 18, 2008

Filmmaker Whit Stillman makes a strikingly original debut with Metropolitan, a glib, ironic portrait of the vulnerable young heirs to Manhattan's disappearing debutante scene.

| Jul 18, 2008

None of Stillman's endearing characters quite fits their prescribed social context, and in its exhilarated final movement, Metropolitan finds an exit out of the stifling UHB salon.

| Jun 24, 2006

''Metropolitan'' is a comedy of manners of a very high order.

| May 20, 2003

Not very much happens in Metropolitan, and yet everything that happens is felt deeply, because the characters in this movie are still too young to have perfected their defenses against life.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000

True appreciation for this movie may be restricted to those with firsthand experience in this kind of world, or a certain upper-haute stamina.

| Jan 1, 2000

Like chamber music, Metropolitan is sprightly, intimate and all too self-aware.

| Jan 1, 2000

Metropolitan has a great subject, all right, but it treats that subject with white (kid) gloves.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 3, 1990