Movies: 'Sex and the City 2' Review
Movie:
Sex and the City 2
Genre:
Comedy, Drama, Romance
The Verdict:
Carrie On.. (Not so) Regardless
Rating: 2 Stars
STARRING:
Sarah Jessica Parker
Kristin Davis
Cynthia Nixon
Kim Cattrall
Chris Noth
John Corbett
David Eigenberg
Evan Handler
Jason Lewis
Willie Garson
Oh my Abu Dhabi! I am getting the feeling that the basis of your enjoyment for the second big screen instalment of SATC depends on your perspective as an admirer, despiser or a casual squinter of the original series. I was a casual squinter. (I often wonder if it wasn't for the fact that I had to view certain TV shows for a living - would I have watched them of my own accord??)
Although I enjoyed the series for what it was - a witty but poignant story following the journeys of four females, exploring friendship, career, love and sexual relationships, draped in high fashion amid a New York City backdrop - I wasn't fanatical about the whole O.T.T. materialism of it all i.e. the clothes, the shoes, the glamour, the over-sexuality etc. However as light entertainment goes, I did enjoy the comedy aspect, the characters' dilemmas, attitudes and quips along the way.
The first movie seemed to disappoint a few fans whereas again I enjoyed it for what it was - light entertainment. It always astonished me how some girls were quite taken with the SATC characters of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda and would discuss the outfits and love interests so vigorously as if they were saving babies. I also didn't really understand the 'herd' mentality that surrounded the first movie where groups of girls traipsed off to the cinema all dolled up, giggly, ready for a night of dancing and cocktails (not because I'm a dry shite but because I didn't need a movie to encourage me to do that!!)
Anyway, back to SATC 2(!) put it this way - When the best scenes in a movie feature Liza Minnelli singing "Single Ladies" and the foursome singing "I Am Woman," you know the concept has lost its sparkle. In fact the boozy karaoke scene in an Abu Dhabi club where the four girls sing about being women (like we hadn't noticed) was a little embarrassing to watch - it was also quite patronising, showing up the film's tone-deaf cultural awareness. In fact, I'm sure decent American women found it deeply insulting being portrayed as self-indulgent, self-involved, disrespectful, culturally-deficient and naively rude fish' out of water!
Unfortunately, there is no real plot to this movie. Yes the characters are moving on with their lives but they are whining on about problems not particularly worthy of a sequel! Miranda complains that her boss doesn't like her, Samantha complains about hormone fluctuations and the fear of losing her sex drive (kinda funny), Carrie complains when Big puts a TV in the bedroom (oh c'mon?) and Charlotte complains about how difficult motherhood is when she has a nanny AND a housekeeper. Are you kidding me? This passes for dialogue? To escape all their hardships(!) and through a wealthy friend, Samantha gets all four girls a free lavish all-expenses holiday in the United Arab Emirates! So the city in this case turns out NOT to be New York which is a bit disappointing because NYC was always the fifth girl, if you like..
The whiniest character without a doubt is Carrie - I always thought her character gave girls a bad name. She always seems the most insecure and over-analyses way too much over guys, but I guess this is supposed to be part of the fact that she is a writer and writes about 'Sex and the City'. In this movie she takes the biscuit though. She's committed and married for two years now to her 'knight and shining armour' Mr. BIG and she questions their whole relationship and longs for her old singleton life back when he decides to move a TV set into the bedroom. Deal-breaker!
All four women's characters in my opinion combine the traits of any one girl, i.e. every girl has a career side (Miranda), a romanticist/nurturing side (Charlotte), a sexual side (Samantha) and a slightly neurotic insecure side (Carrie), each girl here just has one of these characteristics to the extreme. But in this movie each character's typical features and each of their very thin layers of dilemma don't even make the plot twist. It's silly and a bit insulting. For God sake, Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie) is now 45 years old, and, frankly, I cannot stomach another moment of her simpering, mincing, hair-tossing, eyelash-batting little-girl shtick persona she's been trying to pull off ever since L.A. Story.
In general I take the SATC brand all in jest but it hit home with me that the movie seems to symbolise everything that has gone wrong in the world economy in recent years – by blindly pursuing materialism, we lose what's really important. This movie spells that out – leaving you feeling ashamed for having liked them in the first place. Having said that, I watched an episode in the series a night later and realised that, actually, I'm not an idiot – they used to discuss interesting, relevant issues - and in fabulous clothes, if you're into that.
I noted that 'Carrie' wore one lovely floaty dress at the beginning of the movie but it was all downhill after that. What was with the casual black 'Dior' t-shirt over a long elegant ballroom purple skirt? (See left)
I believe the premise of the movie originally was to try to ignite a debate over the religious and cultural differences in other societies when it comes to the roles of women and I commend them for it. But they just got it very wrong from start to finish and without a doubt, missed out on a great opportunity. Costume changes drive this story and regrettably the story just isn't very good.