“Sex and the City” is hardly more than a chick flick
Sex and the City (The Movie) – 2 stars (average)
Sooner or later, even male film critics who would normally avoid movies like “Sex and the City” feel compelled to see what everyone is talking about. I heard that if you were a man and saw this movie in a theater you would be outnumbered 20 to 1, so I went with a Netflix solution. About halfway through Sex and the City, I thought to myself, “Surely, there’s a story in here somewhere.” For a movie that was just 2 minutes short of a 2.5-hour runtime, it took its time to do more than qualify as a chick flick.
The first problem may have been that Sex and the City, based on the book by Candace Bushnell, was written, directed, and produced by Michael Patrick King, who wrote and directed a ton of episodes for the popular HBO TV series of the same name. . It is rarely, if ever, a good idea to write and direct a movie; the result of the big screen is literate with big egos that have tried to dominate the creative process without success. King is no exception.
When you’re trying to write about sex and love in the Big Apple and you can’t do better than use toilet humor and some misplaced vulgarity to pump up the audience, you’re courting disaster.
Focusing on someone with poop in their panties for comedy, and inappropriately throwing the f-word around, makes you wonder what King’s personal life is like. There is surely more writing talent here than is apparent in the script.
I like movies about relationships and this one disappointed me. For one thing, the characters’ reactions are exaggerated beyond reality and seem to lack any real, meaningful depth. In too many cases, the characters were not psychologically healthy, that is, they did not relate properly in certain situations.
A better script would have given King better performances. This movie had some less than heady nominations like “Best Summer 2008 Blockbuster Poster” and “Best Summer Movie So Far” (are you serious, dude?), and it got exactly what it deserved, zero awards.
For the sexy part of the film, we have writer Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), thrice-a-day sex machine Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), happy mother and self-confessed wife Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and uptight, self-centered lawyer Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon).
When these four get together, it’s just a barrel of laughter and misery. I’ll spare you the details of the story. Suffice it to say that things work themselves out in the end.
If you want to cuddle up with a group of overly reactionary women who are confused about a lot of things, Sex and the City is your ticket. At the very least, you’ll see a fashion show with a lot of emphasis on looks and very little on substance.