|
Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, Candice Bergen. Rated R.
Let there be full disclosure: I do not represent Sex and
the City’s demographic. I rarely watched
the HBO series, and found it only sporadically interesting when I did. So the
prospect of watching five uninterrupted episodes in the form of a
two-and-a-half-hour movie seemed less than appealing, to put it mildly.That said, I liked it, which means
that fans of the show
should warm to it with unbridled enthusiasm. Written and directed by Michael
Patrick King, who helped steer the popular series during five of its six
seasons, it retains its crudest sitcom sensibilities, serving up a familiar mix
of the saccharine and the (surprisingly) scatological. Yet it remains honest in
its dealings with the four city-dwelling socialites who inhabit its bubbly
universe. Four years have passed since Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker)
rekindled her now decade-long romance with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) beneath a
serene Paris sky, but serenity is notoriously short-lived in this City. With every helping of pleasure comes a generous
side of heartache, leaving the girls to manage their respective crises through
a series of indulgences: shopping sprees, late-night cocktails, even a Mexican
getaway. At the risk of spilling too many secrets – shield your eyes,
ladies – Carrie is preparing to take the Next Step with the fabulously wealthy
financier born John James Preston, while Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda
(Cynthia Nixon) are enduring relationship-defining upheavals of their own. Meanwhile,
Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has been relegated to Los Angeles, where her ongoing
flirtation with monogamy is being put to the test by a hunky next-door
exhibitionist. Beyond that, the joys (and lows) of Sex must remain a mystery,
save to say
there is much discussion of designer handbags, a mid-movie fashion show, and
one memorably lowbrow accident, played for laughs, that would feel right at
home in the Police Academy movies. Yet Patrick
King’s story overcomes its consumerist bent and crassest
tendencies by concentrating on the relationships between its core players, who
are older, somewhat wiser and still engaging. The transition to the big screen isn’t
always smooth, but Sex
and the City succeeds in rendering Carrie
and her gal pals as strong, thoughtful and well-spoken women, rather than the
shallow, label-obsessed caricatures they might have seemed in the hands of a
lesser writer. There is poignancy in their quests for the happily ever afters
that seem so elusive, and even at their most outrageously decadent, HBO’s Fab
Four remain grounded in the kind of vulnerability to which any man or woman can
relate.
|
