Sex is Back in the City*

T U Dawood

It’s been four long years since the iconic HBO television show Sex And The City went off the air in 2004, but our favourite New York quartet of femme fatales living the high-flying life is back, this time on the silver screen.

Women around the world saw bits of themselves in these four very different characters. Whether it was Charlotte’s wide-eyed Pollyanna rose coloured look on life, Miranda’s neurotic, cut-throat red headed ambition and career drive, Samantha’s sexy seductive siren side or Carrie’s quirky, charming, every girlness, there was something or someone to relate to. Even their clothing styles matched their personalities and these ladies knew how to dress. Viewers spent more time lusting over their outfits and especially Carrie’s to-die-for collection of Manolo Blahniks, then even the hot men they dated who provided plenty of eye candy on the series.

At a recent launch party for the premiere of the film, guests – who were almost all women – dressed up in the style of one of the four characters and it was easy at a glance to discern with which character that woman most identified.

One thing they all shared was their eagerness to see whether Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her on again, off again Prince Charming Mr. Big (Chris Noth) tied the knot and what fate awaited their other favourite characters … as well as what fashion each would be sporting!

In the four years since the series ended, there has not been another platform for showcasing fashion trends in quite the same way.

If you’ve missed the fabulous fashion, the trailblazing frank discussions or the intimate and sincere friendship between these very different women, you will not be disappointed by this film. It feels like a much longer but equally cozy episode or perhaps an epilogue of the beloved series.

However, if you haven’t seen the show or you have a little too much testosterone to stomach over two hours of non-stop girlie moments, do not even consider going near this extreme chick flick … or even bothering to read this article.

For those who wish to read on, be forewarned that spoilers abound.

The Sex And The City Movie begins three years after the series ended with Mr. Big coming to Paris to rescue Carrie from her Russian lover and to finally sweep her off her feet by declaring finally that she was The One. After six tumultuous seasons, she seemingly got her happy ending and the man of her dreams who she had met for the first time in the very first episode of the show six seasons earlier.

Now, three year later, the movie begins with Carrie an accomplished author of three books who is still very much in love with Big. Although she is now forty years old, Carrie and her man are neither married nor even engaged and live in separate apartments.

She and Mr. Big decide to move in together to the penthouse of their dreams but she is still feeling insecure about not being married. It’s only after he casually proposes that the heroine makes the momentous decision to sell her iconic apartment, where many of the most memorable moments of her life in New York – and thus episodes of the television show – were set.

Despite the emotions stirred up by boxing up her belongings and selecting what to keep and what not to, Carrie is so thrilled to finally be marrying the man she loves, that her wedding begins to take enormous proportions.

When Vogue wants to feature her in an issue as the “Last Single Girl” because “Forty is the last age a woman can be photographed in a wedding dress without the unintended Diane Arbus subtext,” suddenly every designer from Vera Wang to Dior to Vivienne Westwood is eager to design for our girl. Best of all, vogue airbrushing!

So how does the twice divorced Big feel about being the star groom of what is proving to be the wedding of the year? You will definitely have to see the film to discover the answer to that one.

The other girls have also moved on in life. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is still living with her husband Steve (David Eigenberg) and son Brady in Brooklyn, but balancing her career and family is proving to be an exhausting struggle for her. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is happily married to a man so unlike the Prince of her childhood dreams that is underscores how in life we can get what we want, it just may be different from what we thought it would be. Their cutie patootie adopted daughter from China Lily steals plenty of scenes and is clearly the light of their lives. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is now living in Hollywood with her smoking hot movie star boy toy Smith (Jason Lewis), but she continues to dash off to NYC every chance she can get.

Each of these women face a monumental decision or change in their lives and in one situation, one friend has to forgive another. There is no villain or other women to fight off, but the greatest obstacles these women have to overcome stem from within them. Over the course of 2 hours and 22 minutes, they experience tears, heartbreak, disappointment, depression, forgiveness, good sex, bad sex, lust, love, fabulous fashion, luxury and laughter. When a depressed Carrie asks Miranda, “Will I ever laugh again?”, the wise redhead responds, “Yes, when something is really, really funny.”

There is also the introduction of an assistant for Carrie. Played by the riveting Jennifer Hudson (Oscar winning Dreamgirls, American Idol), the broken-hearted Louise from St. Louis fits in very well with the cast and is a welcome minority on an otherwise lily white set. She teaches Carrie about “love” and about the Bag Borrow or Steel program, which works like Netfliks for designer bags. For those of you who don’t know, that means you can sport a different trendy designer bag every single week on loan from the company!

Two other great additions in this movie are hunkalicious Dante (Gilles Marini), the object of Samantha’s ogling, and Charlotte’s adorable daughter Lily (Alexandra and Parker Fong).

Written by and directed by Michael Patrick King and produced by Darren Starr, The SATC Movie really makes you wonder whether gay men know women better than they possibly know themselves. Certainly these two continue to bring a sensitivity and realness to this platform that was even lacking in Candace Bushnell’s book upon which the series was originally based.

The film is not without its flaws. For one, it is way too long and really drags at the end. More importantly, the first third of the film is nothing more than a recap of the series and incessant product placements. Almost forty minutes in the movie does the story really even start!

There is also not really much of plot. Episodes of the series used to take their cue from a question posed by one of Carrie’s columns, but in this movie, there is a lack of such focus.

There is also much less trailblazing going on in the film than took place in the series. I mean, Samantha is faithful and fat (well, fat according to her SATC buds) while Carrie is incomplete without a man. The girls have left their cosmo hedonistic days behind them and the film makes clear they have lost their innocence and freshness with which they came to New York City in search of “love and labels” twenty years earlier!

However, they still haven’t lost their spark. Samantha, ever the most memorable character, adorns her naked body in sushi for a Valentine’s Day seduction while Charlotte gets to show her charming spunk in an unforgettable run-in with Big. Miranda asks her husband to speed things up in bed while Carrie wears a blue bird in her hair for her wedding. Honest to God, an actual bird.

There are some genuine moments of chivalry in the film. The walk-in closet Big builds for Carrie is truly an act of love.

Ubergirlie, this flick at times feels like a Vogue magazine coming to life. There is more fashion than The Devil Wears Prada, more fairytale moments (including two references to Cinderella) than a modern Disney Film, more brand placement than a Marketing Convention, more New York City than in even a Spike Lee film and the most sisterhood or supportive friendship between women seen in a film since Beaches.

In fact, “ubergirlie” may be too naive a term for this formidable foursome. Uberwomanly sounds a lot more apt. This may be billed as a girl’s flick, but with its four leads over 40 and one character in fact celebrating her 50^th birthday, and these women having survived everything from breast cancer to adultery to impotence to singlehood to even “Big-ger” problems, it’s clearly a woman’s movie.

You never doubt for one moment that whatever difficulties this quartet finds themselves into, they will survive it together. BFF.

This article was originally published in The Friday Times