film SYNOPSIS

Manhattan. Christmas Vacation. Not so long ago…

An ironically comic look at Manhattan’s endangered debutante scene, Metropolitan chronicles the rise and ultimate decline of a group of young Park Avenue socialites who gather nightly to discuss love, honor, and the impending demise of their class. Into their midst comes an outsider in a rented tuxedo, Tom Townsend, a Fourierist socialist from the socially alien West Side. But there is a real escort shortage on, so Tom is welcomed into the group – particularly by Nick Smith, the group’s ostensibly arrogant but oddly kind ringleader, and by quietly charming Audrey Rouget. Other members of the self-dubbed Sally Fowler Rat Pack, or “SFRP,” include Charlie Black, the preppie Spengler, devoted to Audrey; Cynthia, a budding femme fatale; the ever-sleeping Fred; Jane, rich and judgmental; and Sally Fowler, in whose apartment they all meet. Tom is unaware of Audrey’s crush on him. Although he claims to have gotten over his prep school infatuation with glamorous Serena Slocum, he actually thinks of little else. When Serena begins to reciprocate, Tom’s socio-political qualms about her social world fade. Meanwhile, looming in the background is the handsome, dangerous Rick Von Sloneker, admired by the women but despised by Nick Smith. In the decadent, postChristmas “Orgy Week” (a bit of a misnomer), it is Von Sloneker’s shadow, which falls on the SFRP, contributing to the group’s disintegration and decline. A witty, richly detailed comedy-drama, Metropolitan accurately portrays the surviving remnants of the world, which F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise caught at its heyday.