‘Sex and City’ plays
it safe for the fans

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

Sex and the City is one of those polarizing TV shows that people seem to love or hate. The film is not much different.
If you’ve already decided that the cast are a bunch of materialistic, shallow women, the movie won’t do anything to change those perceptions. However, if you got "carried away" by Carrie Bradshaw and her gal pals during their six seasons on HBO, the movie is like reuniting with an old friend.
I was a fan of the TV show but I do not spend my entire existence looking for love and shopping for shoes, thus making it difficult for me to relate to their personal situations. I liked the friendship among the ladies and how they were always there for one another in times of need.
Even still, I wasn’t super-excited about the movie because it’s been four years since the TV show ended. Great cinema it is not, but I was pleasantly surprised that it managed not to be a complete train wreck.
The movie picks up four years after the show ends. Four friends, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Samantha (Kim Cattrall) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) have settled into monogamous relationships. The film revolves around Carrie’s wedding with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), whom she has been dating (off and on) for 10 years
The movie’s first hour feels more like The Carrie Show, as we watch her wedding balloon from an initimate 75 guests and an understated white suit from a vintage shop to more than 200 guests and a big fluffy wedding gown by a famous designer.
I was glad when the others were given more time on-screen to work out their issues. Charlotte, the perpetually happy and chirpy friend, is worried that something is going to go wrong in her perfect life. Samantha, a woman who changes men like you change clothes, is questioning her monogamous relationship with a younger man and her move to L.A. to support his career. Miranda, the levelheaded lawyer, is dealing with her husband’s indiscretion due to their lack of quality time in the bedroom.
What the movie does right is that it doesn’t stray far from what the TV show was all about. The characters have not undergone drastic personality changes, making them unrecognizable or unfamiliar. Writer and director Michael Patrick King (the TV show’s executive producer) has a knack for humor, although the movie’s funniest moment is a relatively immature poop joke.
At two and a half hours, the movie at times felt a bit long and overstuffed. The addition of Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) as Carrie’s assistant, Louise, added some diversity to the cast, but her role actually felt unnecessary and could have been cut to make the movie shorter.
It’s nice that this movie is "for the fans," but it’s a shame that it fails to step outside that box and find a way to lure new fans. Should there be a sequel (and I hear it’s in the works), I hope more is done to widen the fan base.
The audience for this film is pretty limited (women and gay men). The other few males in the theater probably were dragged by their wives or girlfriends, as evidenced by one woman leaving the theater who turned to the man with her and said, "See, it wasn’t that bad. I heard you laughing." ••
Movie Grade: B