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Whole lotta love

And very little sex in the hen-party event of the year
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June 11th, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

COURTESY PHOTO
Where's Carrie? Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda celebrate their precious few moments of screen time in Sex.
Sex and the City


Directed by Michael Patrick King
With Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg and Jennifer Hudson

For the Post
Labels and love. Those are the two things that Carrie Bradshaw, in the opening voiceover to the Sex and the City movie, says twentysomethings flock to New York City for. I’d venture a guess that school, art and work also have something to do with it. But, in Bradshaw’s world, it’s all about these two pursuits. And, since those two subjects are fit for this review — whereas whatever plot secrets that remain are not — let’s start there.
Labels: When Sex and the City began its run on HBO in 1998, the U.S. economy was in a better place. Maybe it was possible for a freelance writer to have a rent-controlled apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and to afford $500 shoes … or maybe that was always a maddening fiction. In 2008, Carrie’s lifestyle is unquestionably absurd, but the Sex movie finds her priorities unchanged. It’s recommended only for fans of the show, or fashionistas.
The characters have aged a good five years, with everyone well into their 40s but still dressing like fashion plates. With Sarah Jessica Parker, styled atrociously again by SATC costumer Patricia Field, this is a case of art imitating life. At least three fashion-show montages swallow up screen-time, and ensure that the only men in the audience will either be gay or about to get laid handsomely for their trouble.
Love: As an extension of the series’ finale, the movie opens with almost everyone seeming to have found it. But their versions of domestic life are as different as their personalities. High-society good girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is married to Harry (Evan Handler), with whom she’s adopted a Chinese daughter. Caustic lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is living in Brooklyn with Steve (David Eigenberg) and their red-headed son, Brady. Carrie has been dating mogul Big (Chris Noth), whom we now know as John James Preston (!), on and off for a decade. But they’ve been together at least three solid years when the movie opens, and are on the brink of buying a disgustingly large Fifth Avenue penthouse together.
Samantha (Kim Cattrall)’s predicament is the least true to her character (although Miranda’s is also a stretch). She once described herself as a “try-sexual,” meaning she’ll try anything once. Now she’s uprooted her life as a publicist and scene queen, and relocated to Los Angeles. There she manages the acting career of her workaholic lover, Smith (Jason Lewis). And there she spies on her next-door neighbor, Dante, as he loudly makes love to woman after woman. Like the purse-size dog Samantha buys to make herself feel better, she’s fixed but “still has the urge.”
The movie spans almost a year in the life of the women. They start by helping Carrie clean out her closet in preparation to move in with Big. With Champagne and “Take” or “Toss” cards in hand, they help her simplify — although God knows why, since Big has built her a closet the size of her former apartment. He’s turned into a softie, and Noth plays him with as much personality as a bump on a log.  Perhaps Noth was worn down by the toll SATC has taken on his life. He reportedly always got cat-called — “Big!” — on sets of his other TV shows. And, during the filming of the movie, he threw reporters and fans off the scent, saying things like “Yeah, it’s too bad Carrie died.”
Not that, but other dramatic crises — all fairly predictable — throw everyone’s life into a tailspin. (Except for Charlotte, who’s so blissfully happy that the script largely writes her off.) Holidays mark the passing of time with new merchandise, creating way too many product-placement opportunities. Carrie hires an assistant named Louise (Jennifer Hudson), who teaches her about handbag rentals and sorts out the mess of her life. Hudson’s performance is a warm respite from the shrieking and freaking out that pervades Sex.   
In the early years of the series, female fans didn’t necessarily identify with these four friends and their glamorous lives, though the ultra-candid dialogue between them did ring a bell. It was based on the columns of writer Candace Bushnell, who created Bradshaw as her alter-ego. “That’s how I talk with my friends about sex,” was a frequent comment in stories about the show. A lack of that frank talk is the most disappointing thing about the show’s leap to the big screen.
If the individual episodes of Sex and the City were quickie pleasures, Sex the movie is an exhausting marathon at 148 minutes. But if fans think of it as four or five episodes smashed together — and it’s really easy to pinpoint their bookends — they’ll find it bearable. There’s more pathos in Sex than critics have so far let on, even if writer/director Michael Patrick King’s dialogue isn’t as snappy and sassy as it used to be. Like most of his women, it’s mellowed with age.  
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


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