The Ultimate Movie Review of “Sex & The City: The Movie”
Posted by Chris on June 5, 2008 @ 7:38amSo. I decided to get "Carried Away" last night.
Now before I start this entry, I would like to indicate that I am and have been a big fan of the show. This has lessened my credibility with most of my friends…well…actually all of my friends, who happen to be either beer swilling hockey fans with a penchant to deliver blows whenever I bring up John Mayer’s name, or beer swilling music fans who give me slices across the nose whenever I order wine instead of a bottle of 50. Sometimes, they both get together, and if I happen to mistakenly begin to discuss something that happened on American Idol the night before, I run the chance of waking up in an alley. Bottom line, I’m a completely straight SATC fan, living in fear when a conversation about Darcy Tucker comes up. I have to make a concerted effort to not talk about those things that should remain unmentioned at certain times, and usually what I’ll do is draw on my limited 1980’s hockey knowledge…you know…when we all used to collect the Paganini hockey stickers. I’ll throw in some stats about Grant Fuhr.
The theater was packed with many women, wearing pumps and stilletos. My friend commented on just how done up all the ladies were. It smelled a combination of Givenchy and Tommy Girl. I saw more power suits than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and on a few instances, I observed what I could swear were real life Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte combinations. I’ll often see this. 4 combo lady troupes pounding down Bank Street, all in a row. When the movie started, I could sense the anticipation of everyone, including myself, of where the girls were in their respective lots in life, from the last episode. A hush fell over the theater.
Well. I wasn’t dissapointed. Carrie and Big were still together, getting ready to purchase a fancy apartment in New York’s elite district. Samantha had moved to L.A. with Smith, managing what seemed to be a career on fire. Charlotte and Harry had adopted an adorable little girl from China. Miranda and Steve had found their groove to some degree in that same house in Brooklyn that Miranda had resisted to, and they were still lugging around Magda, with Brady in tow, trying to compromise their different perceptions and approaches to life and marriage. The kid who plays Brady looks astonishingly like an actual cross between Cynthia Nixon and David Eigenberg. Good casting Michael Patrick King!
The same tendencies exist. Samantha is still a nymphomaniac. Her relationship with Smith is strained, as he’s constantly on a shoot, and she wages a personal battle against her sex starved self as she suddenly discovers her inner voyeur for the neighbor next door. The fact that they seemed to have lasted as long as they did even seems to surprise Samantha. Charlotte and Harry seem quite happy, and Charlotte is the quintessential mother who doesn’t deal with the strain of a career versus Miranda’s uptight and cantankerous take on the difficulties of balancing wife/mother/lawyer/Miranda/ challenge. Miranda doesn’t hesitate to let people know how difficult she is finding it. Carrie is her usual self, only now she’s a sensation. A financial and social success, she basks in the lack of complication between her and Big that seems to have allowed them to actually learn to love each other unconditionally and without judgement. She has her man, and she’s happy. That is, until they purchase the apartment.
There’s a hilarious segment of dialogue that occurs between the four after Miranda insensitively encourages Steve the night before, during sex. There’s also a few genuinely awkward and painful moments in the film when you recall the history of these characters. Jennifer Hudson puts in a great turn as Louise, the assistant that Carrie hires as she tries to get her life in order. The two actually have some good chemistry in the movie, that works a great angle of allowing the audience to see Carrie relying on someone else besides the other three for emotional support. Louise represents a completely different type of person in this mix, from an entirely different background, that is grounding more than anything.
This series was such an institution, that men and women both, seemed unable to avoid the natural comparisons to these characters that everyone seems to make. The biggest thing I hear is that everyone can relate to all of them, to some degree. I’m not even just talking about the girls. The men as well, and that includes Aleksander Petrovsky and Aidan. The series, and obviously the movie as well, seems to have become a cultural phenomenon for the working young professionals, who balance emotion and logic constantly, finding themselves exhausted while trying to maintain a sense of self. They waver between openly desiring to find love, while at the same time being strongly and in some cases unwaveringly committed to who they are and what they want. Love must fit in to the spaces that are allowed. If it doesn’t, then they will drown themselves in martinis and margaritas, secretly hoping that if they are destined to be alone, then they will be with each other. These characters are emotionally dependent on each other, and share a bond that is strictly between them, even exclusive from the husbands and significant others that exist. This is the undercurrent that the series producers have so successfully conveyed from the beginning, and which I believe, is exactly what was intended. Some women I talk to think the premise is unrealistic, and portray characters that they resent of the consideration of representing most modern women in some capacity, most times with pieces between the four of them. Others think it’s not about that, and that it is simply a story. Either way, it’s entertaining.
As a concluding element to this…Kim Catrall looks fucking fantastic in this movie. For a 50 year old woman, she redefines the word MILF. Word on the street is that she hates Sarah Jessica Parker in real life, and even referred to their relationship on the set during the series as "strictly professional". You see, this is what I am more interested in. The real dynamic between these four, as in the real life dynamic. Cynthia Nixon is apparently a lesbian in real life, and judging by the personal quote I was recently reading about her on imdb.com, actually has the opinion of marriage that she seems to keep during most of the film. Kim Catrall openly has resentment about the series costing her her third marriage to Mark Levinson, the guy she wrote that orgasm book with. Rumor has it that that was one of the reasons she was so hesitant to return to the movie. It wasn’t only the money, it was also revisiting a character that represented a real life turmoil for her to portray. SJP has been married to Ferris Bueller for a while. She was an original 80’s bratpacker, and managed to actually live with Robert Downey Jr. for about 9 years. That makes her a survivor, because RDJ, if we want to use acronyms, was a maniac during that time. Kristin Davis is made out of cardboard in real life, and requires oil changes.
Check it out. It’s good. Really good. It’s usually pretty difficult not to gloss out a series to big screen adaptation. Word on the street is that the initial script had some big names attached to it to direct. SJP stepped in and flexed some logical muscle, arguing that hiring the team behind Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was completely retarded, and that unless they wanted a national mutiny on their hands, they should migrate everyone…literally everyone who was involved in the show….to the big screen adaptation. In my books, that makes her quite smart.
As a beer swilling movie fan, I would like to offer a different review of this movie.
I have never seen the TV show. I don’t think that should matter. A good movie should be a good movie no matter what the background is.
I would also like to say that I have seen my fair share of good AND bad movies over the years. After a long time without seeing a really BAD movie I saw Made of Honour a couple weeks ago. This was possibly the worst movie I have ever seen in my life… until I saw Sex in the City.
If this movie didn’t have a lot of nudity (thankfully not SJP) I would have asked for my money back. Not only was it boring, long, and predictable, but it didn’t really have a plot of any sort. Everybody is happy, everybody is sad, and then everyone is happy again. Awesome.
I will never get those 2 hours of my life back.