STUDIO: New Line Cinema
RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2008
STARRING: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Jason Lewis, and Jennifer Hudson
WRITTEN BY: Michael Patrick King
DIRECTED BY: Michael Patrick King
GENRE: Romantic Comedy
RATING: R

Imagine a show about four guys who move to the city, get well-paying jobs, drink beer and only talk about sports and cars. Imagine they all have girlfriends and mistresses who happen to be strippers, models and porn stars. Now, imagine these four louts are women. Imagine Sex and the City. Does Carrie finally marry Mr. Big? Does Charlotte finally get pregnant? Can Samantha really settle down with only one man? And will Miranda ever stop being a bitch? For the answer to these and other burning questions, you must see Sex and the City the movie. Fans of the popular HBO series have waited four years for this, and four years means the ladies aren’t in their thirties anymore. Now, their focus is on family, kids, home, the future... you know, boring stuff.

Columnist, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is now the best-selling author of two books, and a contributing editor at Vogue. She is nearing middle-age, successful, but (gasp!) still not married. For that, there’s her longstanding, on-and-off again love Mr. Big (Chris Noth). Expanding their relationship to the next level, Carrie and Big go house hunting and find their dream: a pre-war Upper East Side penthouse (although the closet is way too small). Not only will marrying Big fulfill a series-long desire, but it will get Carrie her name on the lease, just in case things don’t work out. When Big agrees to buy her a bigger closet, Carrie seals the deal, or so she thinks.

Carrie’s friend Miranda used to be a hot young lawyer living in Manhattan. Now she’s the tired, breadwinner commuting from Brooklyn for her poor sap of a husband, Steve (David Eisenberg), and their little boy. Although Miranda and Steve are still together, their relationship has gone stale. One night, during sex, she tells him to "get it over with." Later, Miranda reveals to her friends they haven’t had sex in six months. It’s clear to her that despite going through the motions in bed, their sex life certainly is non-existent. When her husband strays, (can you blame him?) she throws him out! Instead of celebrating, (could you blame him?) the poor bastard returns to her bawling, "You’re amazing!"

Samantha, the sexually adventurous one, the slutty type as some would say, finally decides to settle down with one man. She’s left Manhattan for a Malibu beach house where she lives with a handsome young actor. Samantha manages talent (or something) in Beverly Hills, but still has time to hang around the house and spy on her playboy neighbor whose life is one continuous orgy. Of course, Samantha is irresistibly drawn to the man next door, despite the fact that she’s living with a guy who helped her through breast cancer, and who is, essentially, way too good for her. In the end, of course, she leaves him. Samantha’s not a one-man-kinda gal. No, more like a single, grotesque, lost-at-fifty-kinda gal.

Charlotte, the sweet but dim one, has always wanted to have a baby, and have one she does; a five-year-old girl adopted from China. Aside from that, Charlotte does two things in the movie: She jogs and also provides the toilet humor. On a madcap jaunt in Mexico with the girls, she drinks the water. Result? Hilarious Montezuma’s Revenge! When fear begins to set in over the possibility that she might be pregnant, she curtails the jogging only to resume again when her worries subside. When it comes to the big screen, Charlotte's life is a bit more manageable.

Previously unattached to the Sex and the City world, former American Idol turned DreamGirl, Jennifer Hudson, drifts through scenes mid-way through the film as Carrie's assistant probably wondering if it was a good career move. Playing a stereotypical role as a best friend/confidant, Hudson's subordinate character feels poorly thought out and beneath her potential... especially after so much attention with DreamGirls.

If you didn't follow the show, the movie can be mystifying: Carrie and Big only have one scene together in the first act, and they talk about library books and love letters written by people like George Sand and Beethoven. It’s not easy to gauge their commitment based on lines like: "I love the smell of library books!" Samantha slutting around Manhattan was a lot more fun when she was in her thirties, but at fifty, it’s a bit disconcerting if not altogether creepy. Selfish and superficial characters are terrific on a show like Absolutely Fabulous. The difference there is that Patsy and Edina, the overripe wannabe doyennes of the London celebrity scene, are meant to be laughed at, not wept for.

Making his big-screen debut in the director's chair, series showrunner, writer, and sporadic director, Michael Patrick King doesn't stray too far from the show's roots. King makes Sex and the City a TV show on the big screen, only with slower pacing and a relentless 146-minute running time.

Fans of Sex and the City inevitably point to the show’s strong female characters, but do strong women obsess over a pair of shoes? Guilty pleasures are fine until they become an indulgence. Do strong women abandon relationships the moment the going gets tough? And do strong independent women really spend most of their waking moments obsessing over men? Like teenage girls, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha are solipsistic slaves to their appetites. They're materialistic, weak and shallow. Their great virtue is that they always stand up for each other, right or wrong (but usually wrong). Ultimately, although the characters have their own relatable integrity a lot of women relate to, in many ways their surface level qualities also make Sex and the City demeaning to women.

When it comes to the male aspect, Chris Noth plays Mr. Big as a cipher in the way women are usually ciphers in male-driven movies. He’s handsome, rich, easy-going, a bit bland and somehow elusive. In Carrie’s world, he is the ideal man; the one who understands her needs enough to grant her a bigger closet and pick up the bill to fill it.

On the bright side, the movie (as was the case in the series) boasts a powerful cast in Emmy and Tony winner Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Sarah Jessica Parker who brings sweetness and honesty to everything she does. Though she's now widely known for Sex and the City, Parker has done exceptional work in movies like, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, The Family Stone and has enjoyed a fruitful career on the stage. Fashion maven Pat Fields returns as the film’s iconoclastic costume designer. Nominated for her work in The Devil Wears Prada, Fields is a multi-Emmy winner and giant in the world of New York fashion, which has always been a strong point for Sex and the City.

If the new film is any indication of where things are headed in the future, the return of Sex and the City would work much better back on TV as a cable series... on The Lifetime Channel.