Sex and the City

In honor of the sequel coming out this weekend, thought I would write up my analysis of the first film, which came out two years ago (I’ve categorized it under “just rented” but yall know I saw it the day it come out in theaters- actually the day before at a special premiere!).   The theater was packed and abuzz with fans just dying to see what our four favorite ladies have been up to the past couple years.  If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you already know I have the show on quite a high pedestal.  That is why this movie was a disappointment….and for the following reasons:

1.  Script.  Just about every episode of Sex and the City (SATC) is very brilliantly written- there are serious topics involving realistic feelings and emotions interwoven with humorous conversation exploring any and every topic.   The table side conversations are what make the show so unique and special.  Yea, shows like Seinfeld and Friends contained good convos in food establishments, but they were more comical and casual.   SATC was more like a round-table discussion- like watching The View but without the feeling of wanting to shoot yourself.   There weren’t as many of these table scenes in the movie, which is understandable because the women weren’t as close physically and available for them- but they could have been replaced with other good conversations exploring and analyzing behavior.  The only one that comes to mind is the one in the beginning when they are talking about ‘coloring.’  Other than that- I wasn’t impressed with the quality of the conversation among the women.  A lot of the dialogue felt cheap and put together too fast- I know they did the movie in a pretty short amount of time, but it’s not like the episodes of the show had a lot of time either.  But for some reason, the dialogue didn’t hold a candle to the series.  Looking at the bigger picture- the storyline wasn’t that great either.  I’ll give it it’s own paragraph:

2. Story.  Ok if you are a diehard SATC fan- you will see how the series came to a complete circle and reached closure for every girl.  WASP Charlotte found love in the most unexpected places:  a Jewish husband and Chinese adopted daughter.  Samantha found a way to truly let herself go and love a much younger and more dependent man.   Miranda learned to let go of her stubborn single-minded life and move to the less-desirable Brooklyn with Steve and her son, and take in Steve’s sick mother- no questions ask.  Huge change for Miranda.  And finally, Ms. Carrie Bradshaw got to have her romantic embrace with Big in the streets of Paris- a long time coming- and heard the magic words “You’re the one.”  Ok- so the writers are allowed to ‘shift’ these storylines a little bit- but you can’t mess with them too much because that was the series finale- the endings we all wanted and reached closure upon.  If you’re gonna do a movie, make it more about them having fun in their new lives and experiences other mild problems and talking about those.   I DID NOT like Big ‘leaving’ Carrie at the alter- if you could even call it that.  First of all, he changed his mind right away and then when he got out of the cab and Carrie started slamming him with flowers- he never said one word like “No let’s go back!”  He let her leave and didn’t aggressively search her out for an entire year.  After 5 years of blissfully being together?  Come on.  Big deserves more credit than that ludicrous behavior.   And then we get to watch Carrie moping around for half the movie (yawn).   I liked Miranda’s storyline- it was more realistic.  Charlotte’s was quite boring- the big drama in her life is that she is afraid to run while pregnant?  What about a funny storyline about her and her daughter and showing more of her life as a mom?  Finally- Samantha.  I get that the show writers wanted to make her the quintessential ‘can’t be tamed’ single gal, hence why she had to step out of Smith’s shadow and break up with him – but I was kinda disappointed.   I really liked them together.  But I also like that one of the women was kept single and not needing a man to complete her life.  So the verdict on the Samantha storyline- I approve (but I love Smith!).

3.  Jennifer Hudson.  Nothing against the girl personally.  She is very talented, loved her in Dreamgirls, but flat-out- she didn’t belong in this movie.   You can’t place a well known actress/singer in the movie unless she is briefly playing herself in a cameo.  They should have picked a lesser known simple actress to play Carrie’s assistant.   Jennifer just seem oddly placed in this world the fans are way too comfortable with- mixing an American Idol contestant with our Manolo-clad gals was weird.

This is what I would have liked to see:  a nice fun wedding with Carrie and Big with a little bit of drama, but nothing too crazy.  Maybe some more drama in the honeymoon- which would lead to a bunch of round-table discussion among the women.  Carrie could still have an assistant helping her out and teaching her a thing or two about life- but it would have been nice to see Carrie and Big in their day to day married life and the troubles/joys that brought compared to before “marriage.”  (This is supposedly a topic covered in the sequel, but for the most part from the trailers it looks like most the time is spent overseas just the women).  And the rest of the stories could have been interwoven with that.  I just wanted to see more of the normal NYC SATC scenes and could have done without the depressing ‘honeymoon’ to Mexico, and subsequent depressing winter in NYC.   Ooh, it would also have been fun for Charlotte to randomly run into Trey McDougal somewhere as well- and we could see what he has been up to.  He was a fun character.  Alrighty.

Did I like anything about the movie?  Of course!  I can never tire of watching these women in action- even with the above pitfalls of the movie.  I liked the fashion- the wedding dress sequence was so fun.  (in contrast to the Carrie Closet “Walk this Way” dance sequence- very cheesy and not fun).   The rest of the outfits were also well put-together by genius Patricia Fields.  I liked how the wedding was in the library- one of the best parts of the show was highlighting parts of NYC many people haven’t seen.   Despite my criticisms, I have seen the movie many times over in the past two years- like I said – I could watch these women do QVC commercials and enjoy it.

Here’s hoping the sequel makes up for what this one lacked…