Stillman’s third feature is a finely crafted comic look at the early 1980s Manhattan party scene from the vantage point of the late nineties. At the centre of the film’s roundelay of revellers are the icy Charlotte (Beckinsale) and the demure Alice (Chloë Sevigny), two publishing house underlings looking for fun at a Studio 54–like club. Set to a pulsating disco soundtrack, the film marked a commercial breakthrough and offered an unsentimental look at the end of an era.