$3 million at the box office. It was widely praised. In a typical comment, Vincent Canby, writing in The New York Times, called the movie "a singular pleasure.... a joyfully talky comedy. "Mr. Stillman was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay, in the company of Woody Allen, Barry Levinson, Peter Weir and Bruce Joel Rubin, who won for "Ghost. "The film won awards at festivals in Locarno, Switzerland, and Deauville, France, and played commercially throughout Europe. Then came a long lull, and much speculation about why Mr. Stillman's next film, "Barcelona, "was so long in the making. There was talk of a severe writer's block that kept him from completing the movie, which is set in the Catalan city and is about a circle of friends not dissimilar to the one in "Metropolitan, "except that while the principal fellows remain