SEX AND THE CITY:
THE MOVIE [R]
review by Robert Nesti

Carrie Bradshaw (a.k.a. Sarah Jessica Parker) always looks pretty in pink, or in any color that costume designer Patricia Field serves up for the actress in Sex And The City: The Movie. She looks especially stunning in a wedding dress, designed by Vivienne Westwood, for a Vogue spread that’s given her for her own wedding because she looks so perfect in it. That fairy tale wedding to Mr. Big (Chris Noth turns out to be a nightmare when (plot disclosure) he jilts her and sends this movie in a downward spiral it never appears to recover from. The movie turns out to be more soapy than sexy: perhaps Sexless In The City would be a more apt title.

What made the show worth watching was its punchy attitude towards sex often told as anecdotes to its main plot, which followed four very different New York women - Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Samantha (Kim Cattrall) and, of course, Carrie (Parker) — in pre- and post-9/11 Manhattan on quests for relationships, or simply a little action. Who could forget “The Up-The-Butt Girl,” or Miranda’s encounter with a rimming-obsessed jogger, or Charlotte’s dirty-talking boyfriend, or Samantha’s encounter with a wealthy older man with a sagging ass? These sequences gave the show edge — you pretty much put up with the rest of it, which consisted of following the relationships the women eventually found themselves in, most specifically Carrie’s neurotic angst over Mr. Big.

That appeared to resolve itself at the series’ end in a much-watched season finale in 2004. Carrie even discovered his actual name: John, which was withheld for the six seasons the show was on HBO. As if to give it closure, all the women — even the relationship-phobic Samantha — found themselves with long-term commitments: Charlotte with a menschy lawyer (Evan Handler) and an adopted girl from China; Miranda with Steve (David Eigenberg), the bartender she married, with whom she moved to Brooklyn; and Samantha with Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis), the model she turned into a successful television actor.

While this may have been a sensible way to bring the series to a close, it leads to some problems with the film version since it all but eliminates the playful sexy bits that made the show so funny (and revolutionary in its own way). Many made comparisons between these women and single gay men, and the amount of sexual activity was fitting. Without them, the movie becomes just glossy soap opera punctuated with some witty one-liners (and even they seemed few and far between). Michael Patrick King, the series’ lead writer and director, is in charge of things here, but appears to be overwhelmed by the project. Short 25-minute weekly episodes is one thing, simply stringing them together and calling it a movie is another; and clocking in at close to two-and-a-half hours, Sex And The City is a long haul, like watching an entire dull season in one sitting.

It shouldn’t be — King has shown himself to be an inventive and very funny writer in the past; and the cast, not only the four leads but virtually all the supporting characters from the final season (and before), are here and in fine form. There are also the clothes, which suggest what living with seemingly bottomless deep pockets can be like. (How Carrie could afford what she wears and where she lives has always been one of the more unbelievable aspects to the show, but never mind.) But that the clothes remain interesting long after the main storyline does not is proof that this popular franchise has jumped the shark.

Fans, of course, don’t seem to mind that much, at least judging from the reaction from the audience (largely female and gay men) at a recent Boston preview screening. Just seeing the iconic quartet on the big screen seemed enough for them. That King didn’t come up with more inventive ways to make the plot more interesting remains a mystery. Could it be that he felt that the women are in relationships and needed to have them conform to monogamy? The only extracurricular sexual activity is committed by Steve, who pays dearly when he confesses. Even after Carrie makes what appears to be her final break with Big, she has no flirtations or romantic encounters with new or old boyfriends — just a lot of angst, recrimination and tears with the girls. Not even the übersexed cougar Samantha reverts to her old ways, even with tempted by a hunky young stud (played by Gilles Marini) she encounters in a shower. Perhaps this is meant to be a mark of maturity, but it makes for a dull narrative. Who would have ever thought that “Sex and the City” would turn up as a movie that would be right at home on the Lifetime Network, preceded by episodes of “Gay, Straight, or Taken?”

Some may have fun in trying to identify the real-life personalities that inspire some of the events in the movie, such as actress Ellen Barkin who, when abandoned by her billionaire husband Ronald Perelman, sold the jewelry he gave her in auction; or film executive Jonathan Tisch, who jilted his bride at the altar because the wedding had grown too unwieldy. And many will likely enjoy the presence of Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson as Carrie’s no-nonsense assistant who has come to New York in search of love, but instead redesigns her boss’s website. Again, why King didn’t find an excuse for her to at least open those pipes and sing is a mystery (though she is heard over the final credits).

Certainly there is pleasure in watching the four leads interact once again, and to wallow in the conspicuous consumption. (The product placement of high-end labels is worthy of a story all its own.) Still, today even that seems a bit dated in these more fiscally conscious-times, as does the project itself, which was three years in the making and seems to have been put together by a committee. Leaving the theater my companion, who was equally disappointed, was jolted by a thought: How could he possibly sit through this movie again with his absent partner this weekend as promised? Repeat viewings was never a problem with the television series, which had the virtue of being eminently watchable time and time again, and that may be the most damning criticism of all of this lackluster film version.•••

Robert Nesti is the National Arts Editor for EDGE.