Review: Sex In The City: The Movie

Before I get into this review I’m just going to come out and say it. I hated the movie. Completely, flat out, hated it. Looking around at other reviews I can see that while I’m not alone I am in the minority. I guess my point is that while I hated it, you may very well love it. So read on or don’t, enjoy it or don’t, maybe I just didn’t get it.

It’s not that I’m not a fan of the show (if you've read this blog, you know otherwise). I’ll admit that I haven’t seen every episode but I do watch it on a regular basis, have watched it for years, and I enjoy it. Yes I think it’s silly and shallow and I really never have understood SJP’s wardrobe. But it’s fun escapist television about women having sex in a city that I love. I can turn my brain off for a while and go with it.

It’s also not that my expectations were too high. Honestly, they were pretty low. All I was looking for was a fun movie about characters that I like and know.

That’s not what I feel like I got. I feel cheated.

Almost immediately I was thrown for a loop. The lights went down, the picture came up, the familiar music started to play… and then… Fergie? Uh. Huh? Where is the rest of our theme song? Where is Carrie in her tutu?

Granted, it is four years later. A lot can change in four years. Carrie and Big are still together! And they’re happy! Miranda is a workaholic, Steve is trying his best, and Brady is still adorable. Charlotte and Harry have adopted their beautiful Lily and are living their fairytale life. Samantha and Smith are out in LA (Really? Samantha left NYC? The sex really must be good!).

That’s our status quo. I don’t really want to say much more than that because I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who have been kind enough to keep reading. So with that in mind I won’t say anything more about the plot points and I’ll instead tell you what this movie did (or didn’t do) to earn my absolute loathing.

First of all, spoilers aside, the plot is awful. Rather than any reasonably developing progression where point A follows point B, where we see a cause and effect, instead I feel like we are given a scenario where This happens and then This happens and so on and so forth. Nothing feels motivated by what precedes it in the film, let alone the six years of television history. There is the occasional reference to something we remember happening, the occasional name-dropping (remember that guy Aidan?), That’s pretty much as far as it goes.

In fairness to the story, they do try to give us something for everyone. Each of the girls is featured at some point.

Honestly though, I hate what they do with Carrie. She is so passive for the entire film. I feel like her character is completely lost, she has no voice. I’ve always thought Carrie was silly but she was silly in her own special way. In the movie she isn’t just depressed; she is silenced.

As for everyone else… Miranda is an uber- (word that is censored). She is beyond the tough lawyer I occasionally roll my eyes at but like in general. She is uncompromising and unlikable. It is her character taken to a simplified extreme that loses any of the minimal complexity she was originally given. What made her an interesting, empowered female character in the series is completely taken away and instead we’re given an insulting version of what is in store for any female who decides to attempt a challenging career in addition to a family.

Charlotte… poor Charlotte. She isn’t so much a human being as she is a shrieking doll. Did Charlotte do anything other than screech? In a rare self-aware moment, Miranda is given a line commenting on Charlotte’s screeching. That doesn’t excuse it! Then that whole thing with Charlotte in Mexico? Really? Give me a break.

As for Samantha. Meh, I honestly don’t have much to say about the roll she and Smith are given. It’s more like our lovely writer said “Hey, here’s who they were in the series, let’s just do the same thing with them we’ve done a million times before. And Samantha can adopt a puppy. No one will notice that we completely throw away these characters if there is a cute humping puppy involved!” The puppy humps more than Samantha does. I’m not kidding.

The one new character Louis (played by Jennifer Hudson) is an improvement and welcome break from everyone else but that is saying next to nothing.

I could go on at this point about Steve and Big and the gay boys and others. I think you get my point though. Yes, we see almost everyone we cared about. Yes, they are doing the same wacky things. That’s it though; there is no depth. There is nothing to them. They never come alive. The fault may be with the actors but based on David Eigenberg’s and even Chris Noth’s performances, my opinion is just that the script and the direction failed. Completely.

Where is the wittiness? Where are the clever lines? Comebacks? Commentary? A cute line or two that we've all ready seen in the trailers. A joke about Vogue airbrushing and a surprising reference to Diane Arbus. A vulnerable moment with Charlotte, an actually convincing moment with Steve. Occasionally the heart of Sex in the City shows through. Unfortunately these moments are rare and the film is bogged down with clichés, bad jokes, gross out humor, and a plot that is never developed but instead thrown at us.

Sometimes a movie adapted from a television show runs the risk of seeming like an overly long episode. For Sex in the City, that scenario would have been a welcome improvement.

When it comes down to it, this movie is insulting. Samantha has to call Miranda out on an overgrowth of a certain type of hair? Everyone has to call Samantha out on gaining, what, five pounds? The only things that matter are weddings, babies, and expensive accessories? Is that really all we’re supposed to care about?

Say what you will about the show, but I never felt as angry or insulted watching it as I did almost every minute of this movie. I wanted to like it. I really, really did. I knew it wasn’t going to be great but I would have been happy with fun. Instead, the only thing that made me want to cry was the fact that I spent over ten dollars ton the ticket price.

I really hope for your sake that you avoid this absolute mess of storytelling and waste of time. Or that if you must go see it, and I can understand if that might be the case, that you get more enjoyment out of it than I did.

As it is, I will never willingly watch this movie again and it’s going to be a very long time before I’ll be able to stomach any more Sex in the City. If everything else wasn’t enough to make me angry, that right there is.

Goodbye Sex and the City. It was fun while it lasted but, alas, it was apparently never meant to be. Thank you Michael Patrick King. You’ve effectively ruined a decade of pop culture entertainment in two hours and twenty-five minutes. If that was your goal, couldn’t you have at least spared me that last half hour? For a few minutes I thought about giving you two stars. And then I remembered that last half hour. I’m taking a star back.

Sex in the City: The Movie. One very generous star. I’m not convinced you deserve even that.