‘Sex and the City’ *** Movie Review 061608
(2008)

The Book of the film: The complete series on DVD: Season 1: Season 2: Season 3: Season 4:

Season 5: Season 6 paert 1: Season 6 part 2:

The work = ***
It goes like this: you take the girlfriend to enough “men with guns” movies, you build up a bit of a debt that has to be paid off one way or another. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to the multitude of ways that can happen and just say that one such way is to take the girlfriend to something like ‘Sex and the City’. I’m going to be upfront: as of writing this review I have still not seen a full episode of the show ‘Sex and the City’. I’m way out of the target audience here and I may have been the only straight man in the theater when I saw ‘Sex and the City’. If you like the show you will probably like the movie. The film seems like a feature made for the fans and as such it does little to win over a new audience.

For those of you that are not familiar with ‘Sex and the City’, the film (and the show) follows gossipy writer Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her friends Samantha (Kim Cattrall,) Charlotte (Kristin Davis,) Miranda (Cynthia Nixon). They are wealthy, self obsessed, chatty things, whose real life equivalent is someone like Paris Hilton and her crew. By the second dinner conversation in the film I was hoping an armed gunman would burst through the doors and shoot the place up. No such luck though and since I had dragged the girlfriend to ‘Rambo 4’ and ‘Miami Vice’ (amongst other films) I was in for the full two hours of ‘Sex and the City’.

Much of the film revolves around Carrie’s marriage but it is not really about the marriage it is about the accessorizing, the advertising and all of the consumerism and preening that can be possibly crammed into one ceremony. Add to that some of the most ludicrous looking fashion this side of an insane asylum and you have yourself ‘Sex and the City’. The first dress Carrie wear’s in the film is so goofy it looks like someone played a practical joke on Sarah Jessica Parker. I might actually think that except she wore an equally silly looking outfit to the film’s premiere.

Combine that with some of the most frustratingly idiotic character reactions and you are in for a long movie. (SPOILER WARNING: SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO KNOW NOTHING ABOUT PLOT DEVELOPMENTS.) There is a sort of miss communication and missed meeting at Carrie’s wedding that leads to conflict and the whole thing seems so silly. (Frankly, if Carrie is going to overreact the way she does when her fiancée (Chris Noth) gets cold feet than he probably should have thought he dodged a bullet.)

Actually, I am being a tad bit unfair. The creative forces behind ‘Sex and the City’ are not quite as one dimensional as they might have you think. Carrie’s struggle with her wedding does turn out to be about something and the film is sort of sweet in its own way. While on the surface everything in ‘Sex and the City’ is about the gossip, the outfits, and the hot guys, it does have a warm heart beneath it all. The film is ultimately about understanding and appreciating the ones you love.

Of course, I say that and nobody really cares, they just want to know if it is funny and if it is a faithful spin-off of the HBO series. The girlfriend tells me “yes” so I’m telling you, yes based on her judgment. For myself, I can’t picture watching ‘Sex and the City’ again anytime soon. The film seems targeted squarely at straight women and gay men. If you are in either of those demographics, have a burning urge to see the film, a fan of the show, or any combination of the previous than give the film a try.

-Nate

‘Sex and the City’ Links:

IMDB Page