Slaves of New York

When you think of Merchant Ivory movies, you probably think of those period pieces set in England, although as we saw from Roseland some months back there was a lot more than that. TCM did a spotlight on Merchant Ivory back in the spring of 2025, and another of those not-a-period-piece films that I hadn't heard of before was Slaves of New York.

Bernadette Peters stars as Eleanor, one of those people who moved to New York to make it big but didn't succeed. She'd like to be a hat designer, but as the movie opens she's working at some sort of indie publication, living with a dog and her neat-freak boyfriend, starving artist Stash (Adam Coleman Howard). You wonder how the two of them are able to live in the sort of apartment they do. Steve at least has an exhibition coming up, of his Warhol- and comics-inspired pieces. This exhibition is to take place at the gallery owned by Victor Okrent (Chris Sarandon).

Eleanor's job brings her into contact with another artist, the even crazier Marley (Nick Corri) who comes across as even more of a grifter than Stash. He claims he's going to go off to Rome and build a church for the Vatican, or some such utter nonsense. In fact, the craziness of the modern art world as it was in 1980s New York is the backdrop and a major plot point for the movie.

Eleanor and Stash go to a housewarming party for a mutual friend, where Eleanor meets a guy who's come from South Africa and has a girlfriend. Eleanor and the South African decide to meet up later, although it's only as friends and nothing more than that, although of course anybody else around them would make a not unreasonable assumption that this isn't just a platonic friendship. This naturally brings more tension into the relationship between Eleanor and Stash. She, for her part, can't move out simply because she couldn't afford anything else. It makes her one of the titular "slaves": people who are forced to stay in their current lives because that's all they can afford.

But then one day one of Eleanor's quirky, one-of-a-kind hats is on display in the window of a local hair salon. Fashion designer Wilfredo (Steve Buscemi) sees the hat, and one thing leads to another with Eleanor getting to be part of a fashion show and possibly getting the money to make that move she's been thinking about. It also leads to her getting some new friends....

Slaves of New York got poor reviews upon its initial opening, and it's not hard to see why. One of the reasons, at least for me, was made evident in the opening credits, which mention that this is based on "stories by Tama Janowitz". Janowitz also wrote the screenplay, and it's the plural "stories" part that is the big problem. Either the movie ought to be clearly episodic, almost like an anthology movie, or else it needs a really tight script that draws out one story. Instead, the movie feels like it does neither of these, with a confused mishmas being the result. It also doesn't help that the movie moves slowly up until the finale, running a shade over two hours when the material would work better as something in the 90-minute range.

Fans of New York as it was back in the day, or people who know more about the art world, may enjoy Slaves of New York a lot more. Apparently it's become a bit of a cult classic in the past 35 years. But it's not quite a film for everybody.