Sex and the City
Year: 2008
Directed by: Michael Patrick King
Starring: Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon & Sarah Jessica Parker
Runtime: 151 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 19/08/20
Directed by: Michael Patrick King
Starring: Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon & Sarah Jessica Parker
Runtime: 151 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 19/08/20
Just as I thought I could escape the world of 00’s New York socialite’s reality came crashing back to me when I was confronted with two (yes two!) films that act as sequels to the Sex and the City TV series. I certainly didn’t dislike the TV series, but I failed to connect with it in the way so many others will because I am really not the type of person the show was made for. I was also unhappy with the way the show ended, to me it epitomised everything wrong with the show and the characters; so seeing that I would get a somewhat substantial follow up to this with two films I have to say I was somewhat excited to see whether the ending I loathed so much would be rectified somehow.
Sex and the City, the film, takes place approximately four years after the conclusion of Sex and the City, the series. In that time very little has changed as our narrator and leading lady Carrie Bradshaw is keen to point out. Her and Mr. Big have been dating since the end of the series and he has yet to bail on her and make her life a misery yet again as he consistently did in the show. Miranda is still with husband Steve in Brooklyn raising their son, but the magic seems to have dissipated from their relationship over the years. Charlotte and her husband Harry are raising their little girl that they were to adopt at the end of the series. And Samantha has moved to Los Angeles with boyfriend Smith so she can continue being his agent and he can work on larger film & TV projects.
The film mainly centres around Carrie & her relationship with Big. The two decide to get married but Big gets cold feet and stands her up on the wedding day. Carrie gets understandably depressed and so the girls decide that they will go on holiday to Mexico for what would have been Carrie’s honeymoon. Throughout all of this Miranda and Steve break up as Steve admits he cheated on her. The two haven’t had sex in over 6 months and Miranda will use her son and her job to get out of spending quality time with Steve. As a result, she is going through a period of finding herself again and working out whether she wants to get back with him. Samantha is also reconsidering her relationship with Smith because she misses the New York life, and appears to be growing tired of staying with one man.
Sex and the City, the film, takes place approximately four years after the conclusion of Sex and the City, the series. In that time very little has changed as our narrator and leading lady Carrie Bradshaw is keen to point out. Her and Mr. Big have been dating since the end of the series and he has yet to bail on her and make her life a misery yet again as he consistently did in the show. Miranda is still with husband Steve in Brooklyn raising their son, but the magic seems to have dissipated from their relationship over the years. Charlotte and her husband Harry are raising their little girl that they were to adopt at the end of the series. And Samantha has moved to Los Angeles with boyfriend Smith so she can continue being his agent and he can work on larger film & TV projects.
The film mainly centres around Carrie & her relationship with Big. The two decide to get married but Big gets cold feet and stands her up on the wedding day. Carrie gets understandably depressed and so the girls decide that they will go on holiday to Mexico for what would have been Carrie’s honeymoon. Throughout all of this Miranda and Steve break up as Steve admits he cheated on her. The two haven’t had sex in over 6 months and Miranda will use her son and her job to get out of spending quality time with Steve. As a result, she is going through a period of finding herself again and working out whether she wants to get back with him. Samantha is also reconsidering her relationship with Smith because she misses the New York life, and appears to be growing tired of staying with one man.
It’s a great plot that sticks true to the show and the characters that it set up. So here come the criticisms! Carrie is still unable to understand other people’s feelings which is what leads Big to get cold feet. He wants their wedding to be theirs but Carrie insists on inflating it beyond all reasonable proportions by inviting over 200 guests and having slots lined up in glossy magazines and newspapers to cover the event. He doesn’t want this, he tells her he doesn’t want this, but she does it anyway and when he then doesn’t want to go ahead with it he is made out to be the bad guy. Now I’m not advocating standing up a bride on her wedding day, but it’s not like he hadn’t told her how he felt.
Miranda’s relationship problems fall squarely on her shoulders and luckily this is addressed in the film by the group. Again, not advocating cheating on your spouse, but she had actively avoided spending time with Steve for over half a year and using the excuses of their son being too much to handle (despite having a live-in nanny) and her job being very demanding (which is what she always used to do in the show just to get out of doing things she didn’t want to do, or face her problems). Steve then seeks attachment to another and immediately confesses his infidelities to her, ashamed of what he has done. The film tries to frame him as the bad guy for a little while which irritated me, because yes whilst he definitely didn’t do a good thing, Steve is not a malicious person, in fact he was arguably the only character in the TV Series who never did anything bad. Luckily the girls explain to Miranda that whilst what he did was wrong, she was not pulling her weight in the relationship and they’re disappointed in her for being so willing to throw her relationship down the drain.
Samantha’s story feels a little shoehorned in and doesn’t make an awful lot of sense in the grand scheme of things. Her decision to want to return to the single promiscuous life is not out of character for her, but her reason for doing so is she is tired of putting a man’s needs before hers. The issue there is that she got her and Smith to that point in life because she is his agent! She complains that they have no time for each other anymore and that she didn’t want to live in L.A., but the thing is she is the one that got Smith to that point in the first place!
Charlotte, I feel gets a little hard done by in the film as she doesn’t get her own storyline. She does finally manage to get pregnant, but if anything, this acts as a way to keep her out of the main story as much as possible.
The transition from small screen to big screen can be difficult and many shows don’t manage the transition well, but Sex and the City does bump up the production values appropriately and feels like a cinematic experience. Cynthia Nixon provides the best performance again as Miranda, and the scene where Steve reveals to her that he has cheated is perhaps the best scene in the entire film. Both actors really provide a great performance and it’s far superior to anything seen in the TV show.
Sex and the City is only really recommendable to those who have seen the series. Whilst it does a good job of getting people up to speed with the significant plot points of the series, I feel that if you watch the film without having seen the series you’re at a fundamental disadvantage because it is designed for fans of the show. I did enjoy it more than the show, I think having a reduced timeframe to tell what would have been a series worth of story made the narrative much tighter and the dialogue exchanges more impactful. But the same problems I had with the series are still present in the film so I don’t expect much to change in time for Sex and the City 2.
Miranda’s relationship problems fall squarely on her shoulders and luckily this is addressed in the film by the group. Again, not advocating cheating on your spouse, but she had actively avoided spending time with Steve for over half a year and using the excuses of their son being too much to handle (despite having a live-in nanny) and her job being very demanding (which is what she always used to do in the show just to get out of doing things she didn’t want to do, or face her problems). Steve then seeks attachment to another and immediately confesses his infidelities to her, ashamed of what he has done. The film tries to frame him as the bad guy for a little while which irritated me, because yes whilst he definitely didn’t do a good thing, Steve is not a malicious person, in fact he was arguably the only character in the TV Series who never did anything bad. Luckily the girls explain to Miranda that whilst what he did was wrong, she was not pulling her weight in the relationship and they’re disappointed in her for being so willing to throw her relationship down the drain.
Samantha’s story feels a little shoehorned in and doesn’t make an awful lot of sense in the grand scheme of things. Her decision to want to return to the single promiscuous life is not out of character for her, but her reason for doing so is she is tired of putting a man’s needs before hers. The issue there is that she got her and Smith to that point in life because she is his agent! She complains that they have no time for each other anymore and that she didn’t want to live in L.A., but the thing is she is the one that got Smith to that point in the first place!
Charlotte, I feel gets a little hard done by in the film as she doesn’t get her own storyline. She does finally manage to get pregnant, but if anything, this acts as a way to keep her out of the main story as much as possible.
The transition from small screen to big screen can be difficult and many shows don’t manage the transition well, but Sex and the City does bump up the production values appropriately and feels like a cinematic experience. Cynthia Nixon provides the best performance again as Miranda, and the scene where Steve reveals to her that he has cheated is perhaps the best scene in the entire film. Both actors really provide a great performance and it’s far superior to anything seen in the TV show.
Sex and the City is only really recommendable to those who have seen the series. Whilst it does a good job of getting people up to speed with the significant plot points of the series, I feel that if you watch the film without having seen the series you’re at a fundamental disadvantage because it is designed for fans of the show. I did enjoy it more than the show, I think having a reduced timeframe to tell what would have been a series worth of story made the narrative much tighter and the dialogue exchanges more impactful. But the same problems I had with the series are still present in the film so I don’t expect much to change in time for Sex and the City 2.