Live action, choreography, animation and painting combine in a trip through 20th century images in art and fashion as you may not have seen them before.

It's the very early '80s. "Yuppie" is only just working its way into the vocabulary. And the dance palaces of the 70's are still drawing a crowd, if not quite the A-list they used to. Young and insecure, fresh out of college, waiting for their parents' trust funds to come through, the rising upper-middle class of Manhattan congregates at the clubs, going through their inept mating and social rituals.

These whiney proto-yuppies are not exactly sympathetic. It's still fun, though, to watch the two young women in publishing, the advertising geek and the self-described "night-club flunky" as they contort their way through the social maze of early eighties New York, while dropping their philosophies on life, ecology, terminology, sociology and the films of Walt Disney.

In acting terms, the standouts are Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale; Sevigny the shy, reserved one who ultimately triumphs, Beckinsale the mouthy bitch who shoots herself in the foot most of the time. The real star, though, is writer-director Whit Stilman, who captures the mis-steps and mishaps of a random collection of young people with style, wit and a bit of funky dance music.