Metroland (1997)

Metroland, based on Julian Barnes's first novel, is a tale of midlife, middle-class malaise reminiscent of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. It's 1977, and shaggy-haired thirtysomething Chris (Christian Bale) has a lovely wife (Emily Watson) and baby, a solid office job, and a nice house in the London suburb of Metroland. Life is good, until the surprise arrival of old chum Toni (Lee Ross), whom Chris has not seen for 10 years and who was his accomplice in teenage shenanigans and heady visions of a bohemian life abroad. Toni, an inveterate ladies man and rootless poet, disdains his old friend's bourgeois milieu and feels it his duty to revive Chris's passion for women, art, and rock & roll. Meanwhile, Chris can't stop fantasizing about his steamier days as a 20-year-old in Paris with his sultry French girlfriend, and fails to notice that Toni covets his wife and that she has sexual desires of her own. While there's a palpable sexual energy in the movie's proceedings that adds a certain zing to the themes of angst and longing, their eventual epiphanies are disappointingly benign. Lee Ross's swashbuckling Toni and Emily Watson's intelligent, knowing wife carry the movie. --Rebecca Wright Amazon.com

The English look at 'The Big Chill': METROLAND

If you liked the 1985 classic The Big Chill which took a look at "thirtysomething" America as it froze it's '60's free-spirit into a glacier of forgotten aspirations,then Metroland is worth your while.A simpler and more intimate film than it's American cousin,"Metroland" is the English equivalent of watching the hippie-dippy days of bell-bottomed pants,pot and free love melting into the frozen tundra of Bourgeoisieland- or so we are lead to believe.Simple in plot and heavy in truly adept acting,"Metroland" tells the story of the comfortable married life of Chris and Marion Lloyd (Christian Bale and Emily Watson),a young thirtyish couple in the middle class neighborhood of Edgewood.They have a child,successful careers and the "English garden".Sex is at least every other day.So, what could be the problem?
Chris' boyhood best-bud Toni arrives after ten absent years.Toni (a deliciously wicked Lee Ross) is still living the '60's radical ideals,and the two worlds of sell-out and love-in collide in very palpable ways.Chris is forced to question every choice he has made along the way;he once had aspiratins of being a Parisian photographer;he had a sexy and direct French paramour named Annick (Elsa Zylberstein of Immortal Beloved); Chris actually had developed a loathing of all that was English.WHAT HAPPENED?.Toni actively pursues Chris into rethinking all his choices and his marriage and family.
What makes this film so compelling is the uniformly outstanding performances by the four principle actors.Bale and Watson deliver positively knockout performances, as Siskel and Ebert noted.It's true!.The pain and anger that Chris and Marion confront is real.The question that this film raises is "Do we ever know if our decisions are right?" Like "The Big Chill","Metroland" is not a location,but a state of mind that suggests that being bourgeois is a cop-out for not living your dreams.Are you presently where you thought you would be 20 years ago-or are you restless and questioning? Are you sorry that you are in Metroland? Watch this film,then.
There is loads of sex and frontal nudity in this film,so be warned if you are provincial. February 2, 2008

Love this movie

It's one of my all time favorites. I love Christian Bale too. I have seen this movie many times and I still like watching it. I just wish I would have gotten it on DVD instead of VHS. DVD's last longer. July 19, 2005

The grass is greener

This is the first movie that I've seen that depicts a good marriage in a realistic way. Married people are not immune to wanting to have sex with other people, they just weigh those wants against the value of their marriage. This film takes a look at one man's quarter-life crisis spurred on by the arrival of his devil-may-care childhood buddy. It is an exhamination of what one has versus what he invisioned he would have, and a realization of whether or not he is happy. This film is a glimpse at life, not sappy or overly-dramatic, just good. May 9, 2002

Fairly interesting look at the married life.

Some people assume that they will stay young and single forever. Sleeping around, partying, no familial responsibility...sounds pretty good right? "Metroland" takes a look at the life of Chris (Christian Bale). Chris is a married thirty-something living in a nice part of town and has a stable job. All seems content in his life. Then one day out of the blue, his old buddy Toni shows up. Toni tries to bring Chris back into his world of the single life filled with hot women, smoking pot and hanging out at parties. This causes Chris to take inventory of his current life and the decisions he has made. Some of this film is in flashback. It shows Chris as a 21 year old photographer in Paris, where he meets the carefree Annick (played wonderfully by Elsa Zylberstein). He eventually meets Marion (Emily Watson), who is another Brit like himself currently in France. She develops a very low-key bond with Chris and eventually they marry. Was it the right choice?

"Metroland" has a superb cast which plays their roles in just the right manner. Where this movie falters, however, is the mediocrity of the script. An introspective movie such as this should have much more powerful and memorable dialogue than it has. Hardly anything ever really comes out and grabs you. It just kinda rolls along and eventually reaches its conclusion. It could've been a great look at the choices we make and where it ends up placing us in life. As it is, however, it falls short of greatness...but it's still worth a look. February 2, 2002

A Responsible Dream

Christian Bale stars in "Metroland" as Chris, the early-middle-aged British suburbanite who is suddenly forced to dredge up all his bohemian, idealistic questionings from his early twenties when his old poet-buddy Tony (played by Phillip Saville) shows up. Emily Watson must have sparked many a crush among male cinema-goers, as Chris' mildly stodgy, yet keenly intelligent and feisty wife. Maybe it's just because I'm at a time in life (33) when someone like her is highly attractive, but, well, I thought she was a total babe. But beyond my reaction to her personally, the movie in general has the feel of a real slice of life. This is a set of occurences that many people can relate to, things that strike a real chord.

A few reviewers have commented that this movie lacked a real climax. What did you expect, car chases? Huge explosions? Some kind of cosmic epiphany, perhaps? I think the essence of the charm of this movie can be summed up by Chris' wife's simple obsevation that Tony, the rootless wanderer, is jealous of Chris. Romance and wild times are fine for a couple years when you're young. "Young" in this sense being a socially constructed state, after all -- many people in the world expect to be married and having children, or are busily preparing for it, in their very early twenties, instead of being out drinking and cavorting with Parisian babes. Still, if you are bourgeois enough not to have felt internal forces driving you to get married immediately after high school, as people in many neighborhoods do, after all -- then this movie will speak to you. The point of this movie is that sooner or later, at SOME point, be it at 18 or 30, everyone grows up, and maybe that fact is something other than the zenith of heinousness. I like this movie.

By the way, for anyone out there who likes the basic story of this film, my favorite Julian Barnes book (he wrote the book this movie came from) is "The Porcupine." It's a much more political, different kind of story, but it's really provocative. It makes good use of Barnes' characteristic ear for dialog, and his deft characterizations. If you like Julian Barnes, you should find a copy of "The Porcupine."

"Metroland," at any rate, is positively worth scoping out. Two thumbs up. May 13, 2001

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