By Amanda Hu
It has instilled a love of cosmopolitans, inspired endless quests for $500 shoes and ushered in an age of sexual pseudo-freedom among 45-year-old women everywhere. The infamous Sex and the City was once touted as a new way to look at the single woman: successful, rich and taking over the role of the player in the dating world.
Housewives across the globe tuned in to HBO every week to get updates on their favourite girlfriends, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, and laugh at their constant sexual escapades and wacky girl times. While there must have been some good intentions at the beginning, the series quickly degenerated into 40-something brats pining for their respective boy toys and complaining about damaging their newest Manolo Blahniks and that single girls don’t get the respect their married counterparts garner.
Following the show’s end in 2004, fans wanted more–or the bank accounts of those involved were running a little low–pushing the creation of the Sex and the City movie. Four years and $65 million later, we’re left with an overblown, badly-written, badly-acted piece of cinematic crap.
In the time since the series’ end, Carrie and Big got cozy again, Miranda made the “ultimate sacrifice” and moved to Brooklyn with Steve, Samantha hit it big with her actor boyfriend and Charlotte got the family she always dreamed of. They’re all a bit older and, apparently, a bit more dull. Once-cheeky lines that made the show famous are shells of their former selves in the film, setting the mood for the cash cow’s entire half-assed attitude.
The movie’s “plot developments”–what do you call them when there’s no plot?–barely pass for conflict and all take place within the first half hour or so, leaving the audience to watch a year-long mourning/celebration period, where the girls go through “serious changes,” like Carrie dying her hair brown. Over-dramatized music and slow-motion cuts push the corniness further, on top of cliche lines that are on the edge of irredeemable.
It seems that, after all this time, not much has changed with the group: Carrie still wants Big, Miranda is still a bitch because of her work, Charlotte still wants a fairy-tale ending and Samantha still doesn’t “get” monogamy. Were the filmmakers to cut out all the meaningless cruft (about two or so hours), what would we be left with? An episode of Sex and the City, what the movie should have been in the first place.
What’s most disappointing about the film is that there is no attempt to redeem itself from years of furthering the myths that a woman needs their man to be happy, money is everything and constant reinforcement of the “powerful woman = bitch” stereotype. All the thinly-guised attempts to paint these women as liberated melts away as they spend the whole movie squealing like school girls over naughty talk, expensive clothes and unrealistic fantasy weddings. The once-proud single girls lament over being alone and the endless responsibilities that come with having a family and being tied to others, begging the reminder that you can’t have it both ways.
In the end, fans of the TV show will love this movie because of what it represents–the posh life they can dream about but will never, ever have–and have undoubtedly had high-heeled, cosmo parties to celebrate its release. However, for those who never really liked the show in the first place, the experience of watching this film can be equated to shoving burning stiletto heels into one’s eyes and ears for two and a half hours.