Women give up at 40?. Review on Sex and The City Movie

With a serial as succeful as sex and the city and a subject so doable in holly wood, I guess the making of this film was just meant to be. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha are all back in action, doing what they do best. The foursome made a lot of firsts in television history. While they epitomized the seductive allure of single, successful women in urbania, they were completely lovable. Carrie as the only “balanced” person and the storyteller, was instantly endearing; while her friends conveyed the different aspects of being female with their extreme personalities.

The first time you came across them, they were like the fresh breeze and, equally valuable in the mess of clichéd programs on tv. The series was witty, unusually so. It was certainly unpredictable – no cinderella complexes at work here. And it was simply gorgeous – all those lovely, lovely outfits. But if I were to describe the best thing about the serial in one word, it would be confidence. Even as their men ditched them, age crept up on them and they washed their precious lingerie over the sink while brushing their teeth, they were enviably confident.

The movie really lacks this panache. It is not so much that it trods the beaten path of you cant be really happy unless you have a man ( which it does) but the fact that it does so in an uncharacteristically juvenile fashion. It’s simply Hollywood, and all those bride films. Carrie and Big were an interesting couple, individualistic yet perfectly normal as people.  There was an honest tension between their personalities. In the film, they are simply boring and look like they can’t wait to catch up with the others and take a break from being themselves.

Also, why should glamour and the preoccupation with labels suddenly be vilified? The series asserted its glamour quotient unapologetically. Quite unnecessarily, the film pits fashion against (dontholdyourbreath) love and does a priority check. Yes, you’ve seen it recently in the devil wears prada. Carrie’s beloved city of New York too doesn’t get it’s due from the film.

The film starts off promisingly and has a bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed quality to it. But midway through, you get restless. What you expect from these women is spirit – and they show none of it. You might as well be watching desperate housewives. I am not saying the film is not worth a watch. It has oodles of visual appeal and if you’ve been following the series, you don’t want to miss this. It is just that with all those girls we’ve come to love, it could have been a whole lot better.