Everett, Wash.
Published: Thursday, May 29, 2008

'Sex and the City' fabulous for fans, an ordeal for the rest of us

By Robert Horton
Herald Movie Critic

 I just sat through "Sex and the City," a movie that felt like an entire season of a TV series. I guess the film itself is only ("only") 21/2 hours long, although the preview audience, before the film itself started, was forced to endure a truly surreal half-hour of red-carpet footage from the movie's New York premiere.

But how would I know what a season of "Sex and the City" is like? I never watched the show. And yet I know all about it, in that weird way that pop-culture information enters your bloodstream through media osmosis.

So, a warning: If you're a fan, don't listen to me. The preview audience clapped and sighed. If you wear Manolo Blahniks and drink Cosmopolitans, you will like this movie.

"Sex and the City," the movie, catches us up a little at the beginning, via the ever-present voiceover by newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). We learn that three years have gone by since the TV show tied up everything in a bow.

Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is married and a mother and living in Brooklyn. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is married, with an adopted daughter. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has moved to Hollywood to steer the TV career of her boy toy.

Carrie prepares to move in with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), her on-again beau. But the twists and turns of this epic relationship are far from over, as the movie demonstrates in irritating detail.

The film tackles truly important issues: the size of a clothes closet in a Manhattan apartment, Fashion Week, and shopping. In one delirious sequence Carrie tries on dresses and the film actually morphs into "fashion designer porn," the names of the gods ("Christian Dior … Oscar de la Renta") whispered like prayers.

The characters are pretty vapid. So are the man-boys of Judd Apatow's comedies, but at least they aren't surrounded by money worship. The lesson here is that if you have an enormous amount of money, you'll still have problems -- but at least you'll have an enormous amount of money. This would be fine if the characters were strictly comic types, but the movie wants us to take them seriously, too.

Regulars from the series pass through, and a new character, Carrie's assistant ("Dreamgirls" Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson) comes along, briefly. Perhaps refreshingly, in contrast to the way other TV franchises have lost their essence by changing themselves for the big screen, "SATC" never feels like anything but a bunch of TV episodes strung together.

That will undoubtedly be just what fans want -- and at 148 minutes, no one will complain about getting less than they bargained for. Writer-director Michael Patrick King isn't trying to please anybody else, which is probably as it should be. Fabulosity is its own reward, and punishment.
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