Metroland (1997)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The acting was OK. It's refreshing to see the protagonist with his 'boy body' before he found steroids in 'American Psycho'! Now he just looks like everybody else.This story is not original. The theme has been explored a thousand times in a thousand films that were better. I hate movies portraying other times. It's always impossible to 'recreate an era'! When will Hollywood learn that? The mood, the people, the mores are gone forever. Everyone wants innocence back but you cannot erase the smugness and skepticism of now. It just creeps through everything we do. This is at best someone's dream of what some 1960s young people thought and discovered. I notice that nobody ever tells stories about working class people anymore. The working class never had the luxury of these choices. There was no question about life--it was just survival. One went to school if one got loans or scholarships or worked his way through. One went to war if one was drafted. One went to factory if one was below average. One got married or lived with parents. The act of getting a license to drive or see a movie was special. You took nothing for granted. Your parents didn't adore you; they put up with you. You were most likely an accident. You rarely questioned anything because what you had was such a struggle to obtain and the daily chore of trying to keep it was huge. Just once, I'd like to see this investigated in film. It's a reminder that the film industry is owned/run by wealthy people of the Mideast faith and they delight in reflections of themselves only.

I am not a critic. All I have to say is that I read that Christian Bale's sister said that this role in Metroland, as Chris, is the one that most represents Christian in real life. I saw him, in his role as Chris, the married with child, middle class husband, as one who looked back at his sexual awakening in Paris, and saw how good he had it with Marion,his wife, that what he really wanted, in the end, was commitment, stability, loyalty, and the sweet bliss that only marriage, covenant with one person, can bring. I thought the movie had a wonderful message and beautiful ending. He chose his wife in the end, the woman he fell in love with, not the fantasy. Bravo Chris, Bravo! Loved this movie. However, I am a very biased "critic" as I love everything Christian Bale has been in, as he is an incredible actor, my favorite, and brings it, no matter what the quality of the film.

"Metroland isn't a place. It's a state of mind." So says a retired worker, a passenger on a train, to Christian BALE, after they both take some shots at the provincial life of the bourgeois. Bale comes under the influence of an old friend, Toni (LEE ROSS), who reminds him of all the fun they had as swingers in Paris during the '60s. His patient wife at home fully understands his wanderlust. Meanwhile, we see through flashbacks what his life style was like in Paris, unlike the comfortable middle class life he's living in London with his wife (EMILY WATSON). Watson is the kind of pragmatic wife who even suggests casually that he should be having an affair.It's that kind of story. A man caught up in the everyday suburban life with wife and baby clinging to him longs for days of yore and sexual freedom--or at least he thinks he does. All along we're given to think his wife was right about him--he's just an ordinary guy and really not like his best friend, the vagabond poet played in frenzied, sometimes flamboyant style by LEE ROSS, who is incapable of settling down and is perhaps envious of Bale's suburban bliss.Sometimes sad, sometimes funny (the painfully clumsy first sexual experience), it never quite lives up to its potential despite some sensitive performances. Best moment: Before his marriage to Emily Watson, she tells him she's sure he's going to get married some day. "Why?" he asks. "Because you're not original enough not to."Summing up: There are no startling revelations and this examination of compromised dreams remains a rather ordinary drama.

When the titles of METROLAND started it instantly reminded me of the Rachel Weisz black comedy BEAUTIFUL CREATURES which had been on the previous night. The title sequences were so similar it was uncanny as the camera travels along a rail track to a hypnotic beat . Mind you if I remember correctly things actually happened in BEAUTIFUL CREATURES , hardly anything happens in METROLAND I think this problem isn`t helped by the fact there`s some French input to this movie , yes despite it being set in middle England METROLAND is an Anglo-French co-production not a very succesful combination at the best of times and even a bigger failure where film making is concerned . You see the French gave the world the concept of film study and analysis which means a French critic or a French audience will be able to strip away the veneer of what`s on screen and draw their own conclusions as to what the story is really about - An English speaking audience won`t which means this critic here can only see a slow moving romantic comedy with a very episodic nature. Have you ever been invited to a dinner party where all the guests know each very well and just talk amongst themselves making you feel very left out ? That`s how I felt watching METROLAND , and couldn`t help thinking it might have been far better if the story had been set in Paris with an entirely French cast