Summer movies update: Sex and the City

[thatcrazycajun]

As you will recall from this previous post, I made a list of all the new feature films coming out this summer I might want to see, and wound up with at least one new one for literally every weekend from June to August. So far, I've been able to cross Iron Man, the new Indiana Jones flick, Speed Racer and Sex and the City off the list. Yes, you read right on that last one; the Songbird was a fan of the HBO TV series, so naturally when she was given an opportunity to attend the feature film's Nairobi premiere, she took it. And I found I had watched enough of it with her to be at least somewhat interested in seeing the film so we could discuss it. (For an explanation of how anyone not female or gay could possibly find SATC and its characters interesting, see this L.A. Times column.)

As you might expect if you know anything at all about the TV show, the film begins pretty much where the show left off a couple years ago: with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) finally settled down with her beau Mr. Big (Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Chris Noth)—whose real full name we finally learn in the film—and her gal pals Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha (Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall) likewise enjoying their own long-term relationships. But of course, if we're gonna have a movie, it can't stay that way...and one gets left at the altar on the outlandishly lavish wedding day (in a manner that absolutely made me want to apologize to every woman in the theater on behalf of my entire gender); one gets pregnant after having years ago given up on the possibility; one discovers her husband has screwed around on her and spends the rest of the film working her way back to forgiving him; and one finds the Hollywood show-biz lifestyle isn't exactly conducive to quality time with one's significant other...even when said other is every other woman and gay man's fantasy.

I hadn't realized how much I'd come to like and care about these fictional women until seeing this film. And I also realized that, for all that others have wondered how anyone not hopelessly shallow can be so into all this haute couture and big-city soap opera, it's not about that. Carrie's famous designer-shoe fetish (and yes, she does get a new pair of Manolo Blahnik heels in the film) and the tony Manhattan restaurants and bars where the ladies dine and dish are just the trappings; the real heart of the series, and the film, is the writing, the jokes and above all, the relationships: between the ladies, between them and their men, between Carrie and her new assistant (played by Jennifer Hudson, fresh off her Oscar-winning star turn in Dreamgirls' movie version), and between all of them and the city they love (and in which I used to live, before choosing to leave it as I never thought I would...for love, natch) and in which their lives are lived. And despite the titillating title both the TV show and film share, it's much more about love than sex...and how we all search for it, work on it, cope with it and strive to keep it fresh.

And now I can't wait to see the Songbird when she comes back across the pond for training in D.C. a couple weeks hence. For a lot of reasons.

Comments

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

You know, I was so disgusted with the shallowness of the women in the show the first part of an episode that I saw I never could get into it. It reminded me of a time in my last go-round in college. I was newly married and pregnant, sitting in the college coffee shop studying between classes. The booth behind me filled up with girls, and the discussion left me appalled. It was all about the guy they had slept with Friday night and how he was really "good" but broke and not too good-looking versus the guy they slept with Saturday night who wasn't that great but was really cute and willing to spend lots of money on them, and how they would probably string both of them along- one for the good sex, and one for the spendthrift ways, but they didn't have feelings for either one of them. Made me depressed to be a girl. And some folks kvetch because they think men objectify women! I'm not sure they've got anything on some of the young women of today. I guess it's less a matter of male or female than of character. Sigh.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

And now I can't wait to see the Songbird when she comes back across the pond for training in D.C. a couple weeks hence. For a lot of reasons.

Ooooh, keep us posted. Wanna do dinner?