Go Rent This

An excerpt from a review of Whit Stillman's Barcelona (oh, when will that man make another movie!):

Throughout the film, Stillman keeps the words crisp and believable, using the technique to render the characters more endearing, as with Fred’s consternation over literary undertones:

Fred: Since I’ve been waiting for the fleet to show up, I’ve read a lot, and one of the things that keeps popping up is this about “subtext” … plays, novels, songs, they all have a “sub-text,” which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So, sub-text, we know, but what do you call the message or meaning that’s right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what’s above the subtext?

Ted: [bewildered] The text.

Fred: Okay, that’s right, but they never talk about that.

Full review (and highly-detailed/opinionated instructions for the Vesper cocktail) here.