The movie picks up three years after the
series ended, catching up any latecomers via clips from the series and that
familiar voiceover. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon),
Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) are all blissfully
attached and fashionably attired. Things soon go rotten for Carrie and the
commitment-challenged Mr. Big (Chris Noth), and her downward spiral and
eventual resuscitation provide the movie's central thread. Though the conflicts
facing her three friends are slightly more interesting—infidelity,
infertility, and sexual temptation—they're overshadowed by Carrie's
incessant navel-gazing. Over the course of nearly two and a half hours, the
three supporting players—plus endearing, though overly earnest, Jennifer
Hudson in the new role of Carrie's assistant—meander in and out, often
dropping from sight for long periods, then suddenly reappearing to provide a convenient
plot point or punny quip. Longtime viewers of the television series are likely
to be familiar and comfortable with this format, but it feels unwieldy and
mismanaged at five times normal SATC episode length, particularly when Nixon's story
tearily wraps up a solid half-hour before the movie ends.
In the end, the film functions more as a
super-sized television episode than a fully fleshed-out movie, but it succeeds
in ratcheting up all the series' best defining features. Excursions to Mexico,
L.A., and New York Fashion Week inject some novelty into the old formula. The
movie balances sentimentality with good-natured humor, has almost unbearably
snappy dialogue, and is just plain fun to look at. It lacks craft and nuance,
but ultimately,
Sex And The City serves
as a glitter-laced love letter to its fans, which is really all it needs to be.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.