Sex and the City, the Movie
Sarah Jessica Parker Carries SATC from TV to the Big Screen
May 28, 2008
After nearly 4 years and a script overhaul, the movie version of the Sex And The City is finally here.
When we last left the Fab Four, sex column writer Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) was finally and officially with Mr Big (Chris Noth). Publicist Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) had come to accept she had a loving boyfriend Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis) in a committed relationship. Prim and proper Charlotte York, adopted the Jewish faith and a baby, in that order, with her attorney husband Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler). And removing herself from Manhattan, no-nonsense lawyer Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) had relocated to Brooklyn with husband Steve Brady (David Eigenberg), baby Brady, nanny Magda and Steve’s ailing mother.
Writer and director Michael Patrick King now moves them three years forward.
Dealing with love and sex issues
In the midst of apartment shopping, Big - whom we now know is John James Preston – suggests to Carrie that they get married. But leaves all arrangements to Carrie who gets carried away with the wedding arrangements, landing a plum Vogue wedding spread for the woman in her 40s in her search for ‘the wedding dress’. Then twice-round-the-block Big develops cold feet, and Carrie reacts and calls off the wedding.
The ladies rally round Carrie and accompany her to her honeymoon in Mexico, but this being SATC, they soon find they have their own domestic problems to deal with.
Miranda and Steve’s marriage stalls when Steve confesses to an indiscretion, which Miranda is unable to forgive or get over. Moving apart, it seems, is her only way to move on. Cynthia Nixon makes the most of her angry angsty role, but the tender scenes with David Eigenberg are genuinely moving.
Preppy Charlotte is elated to discover she is pregnant. With no strife in her life (“Yes, I am happy every day!”), she provides the physical and classic humour in the movie – witness how she studiously avoids eating Mexican food but opens her mouth during a shower to hilarious effect. And her post-wedding encounter with Big shows a deft touch at comic timing.
With easily the best lines in the movie, Samantha gets to be alternately witty, classy and cheesey. To make her relationship with Smith work, she tries her hand at kitchen goddess, lining her body with hand-made sushi and putting “wasabi in places where wasabi shouldn’t be.” And her frustrating attempts to stay the right side of faithful are side-splitting.
SATC the movie versus the television series?So does the movie work?
Yes. It feels exactly like SATC but in translating to the big screen, it doesn’t look small or awkward.
The characters are true to themselves. While director King continues to share these flawed but real people living life with us, he does not flinch in letting them make mistakes.
The one thing that rings false – Carrie’s assistant, Louise from St Louis, played by Jennifer Hudson. Although it introduces a major African American character, it is odd that Louise interacts only with Carrie. In truth, this whole subplot could have been removed from the running time of 2 hours and 20 minutes to invest more in Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) , Carrie’s best male and gay friend; Charlotte’s wedding planner Mario Cantone (Anthony Marentino); Miranda’s Ukrainian nanny Magda (Lynn Cohen), or even Steve’s mother (whither Anne Meara?).
As it is, Noth, Eigenberg, Handler and Lewis don’t get enough screen time of their own. We hear and know what the ladies are going through, but the men should have their say too.
Still, the movie is hugely enjoyable – the fashion, the clothes, the shoes, the places to be seen and of course, New York. And the emotional bits connect. It quite fittingly closes with them celebrating Samantha’s 50th birthday, and toasting her next half-century.
