Film Review: Sex and the City (2008)
Hollywood, it would seem, has at last learned its lesson regarding cinematic adaptations of beloved television serials. Rather than exhuming obscure titles from the 1960s that mean nothing to modern audiences, the studios struck whilst the iron was hot: a mere four years elapsed between the conclusion of HBO's megahit series and the arrival of this much-trumpeted feature film. With a guaranteed audience of millions of women worldwide, commercial success was never in doubt—premières reportedly played to auditoriums conspicuously devoid of male faces, and box-office receipts swiftly surpassed $300 million. Whether that success was in any way deserved, however, is quite another matter.
Writer-director Michael Patrick King makes no secret of the fact that this film is intended exclusively for devotees of the original series. The uninitiated—particularly the average heterosexual male—will find themselves utterly at sea. The narrative commences precisely where the television fairy tale left off: four heroines basking in the bliss afforded by their respective paramours. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), the series' narrator and moral centre, appears set to crown her long-standing romance with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in matrimony—a union that, in plainer terms, secures her half the assets of New York's most eligible bachelor.
From this promising setup, the screenplay descends into the most egregious contrivances. A wedding that becomes the season's most anticipated social event also serves as a vehicle for shameless product placement, with Carrie posing for fashion-editorial spreads that do little more than pad the producers' coffers. Crisis arrives via Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), whose husband confesses an infidelity with inexplicable candour; her subsequent separation and an ill-considered remark plant the seed of doubt that derails Carrie's nuptials. Mr. Big, horrified by the media hysteria surrounding the event, develops cold feet at the eleventh hour—only to reconsider later, by which point Carrie has transformed her wounded pride into a wholesale rejection of both marriage and bridegroom.
The machinations are transparent: artificial obstacles must be erected to prevent the film from reaching its inevitable happy conclusion within the first reel. A sojourn to Mexico—ostensibly to console Carrie—provides little more than an excuse for cheap, xenophobic humour at the expense of local cuisine and digestive ailments. Upon their return, Carrie engages a black assistant named Louise (Jennifer Hudson), a character whose sole purpose appears to be a cynical exercise in political correctness, reassuring audiences that the action does not take place in the antebellum American South.
What might have passed as pert social commentary in thirty-minute episodes becomes, at feature length, an interminable slog. King, a veteran of the series, proves unequal to the demands of the cinematic format. The film stretches to a punishing 140 minutes, bloated with the most irritating clichés of contemporary romantic comedy. Characters once celebrated as models of modern, emancipated womanhood are transformed into insufferable, hypocritical creatures—none more so than Carrie herself, the self-styled intellectual reduced to a Cinderella stereotype in pursuit of a wealthy husband.
For those unacquainted with the television series, Sex and the City offers virtually nothing. The genre has shifted from sharp social satire to generic rom-com; the wit has evaporated, leaving only bland, often grating caricatures in its place. The wedding plot, in particular, betrays the feminist credentials that supposedly defined the franchise, recasting its supposedly strong, independent heroine as a damsel awaiting her prince.
Yet the film is not entirely without utility—at least for the male viewer dragooned into attendance by his partner. The experience may be likened to a litmus test: asked whether he enjoyed the picture, the beleaguered chap shall at last discover whether he qualifies as a henpecked husband or retains some shred of independence.
Rating: 2/10
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