I laughed when a friend showed me a card from Someecards that read: "I hope Sex and the City retains the show's ability to make me feel poor, boring, lonely, and terribly dressed. " The card hilariously summed up the reasons why I was never a huge fan of the show. Save for the time I was homesick studying abroad a semester in college, and a friend's DVD collection of all the show's seasons strangely made me feel re-connected to my hometown, I could never accept that Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte represented the modern New York woman. I loved the fashion, but not the idea that the only women enjoying full and exciting lives were the ones with huge salaries who always had the time to lunch together on weekdays, had sex partners in the high double-digits, and seemed to only worry about their love/sex lives, fashion, food, parties and not other things in life like, say, politics, global warming, spirituality, and other things like that.
Nevertheless, I left Sex and the City: The Movie laughing and entertained. Maybe because of my past feelings of the show, or maybe because I went into the theater less critical of it, it seems from a quick reading of other reviews that I enjoyed the film more than most. Fans and critics alike seem to be disappointed with the writing, the dialogue and the direction of each characters' personal arcs, and I can see why. The dialogue does not seem as witty as it once was on the show, the characters hardly seem self-reflective about their life choices (cross-cultural adoptions, gentrification anyone?), the obstacles each character faces seems a bit predictable, and there is that nagging voice telling you when watching that life's messes and complexities do not get cleaned up so nicely in the real world.
None of those potential weaknesses, however, take away from the teddy-bear good feeling of seeing an affirmation of the sustaining power and love of positive, long-lasting female friendships. And as Manhola Dargis pointed out in her May 4th New York Times article , in a summer season, or year-long season if you will, where there is a dearth of female-lead films, part of the pleasure in viewing Sex and the City may come from seeing women on film who are not love interests, mere sex objects, and have some semblance of complexity to their lives and personality.
Even though I still have my issues with the show and could find more with the film, I recommended it to fans and foes of the show afterwards. Go see it and have a good time, if for nothing else, to enjoy the shoes, clothes and accessories that most New York women can only dream about having.