Sex and the City franchise. I own the DVD box-set and loved the first film; however I had heard and read mixed reviews and so was slightly apprehensive about the new film. I need not have worried though, the film is good. There are some parts that felt a bit like they had tried too hard but overall I liked it, as did the two friends I went with.
We join Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda two years after the last film, where they are all settled into domestic life, well, with the exception of Samantha. The film starts with the wedding of Stanford Blatch and Anthony Marantino, the two token gay best friends who hated each other at first. It is a surreal opening that includes swans, women in tuxedos and, wait for it, Liza Minnelli, whose rendition of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ had everyone in the cinema in stitches. The wedding sends everyone into a spiral of doubt about their own lives and marriages, and this is what becomes the central theme to the story. Miranda is torn between her career and her family, Charlotte is struggling with two young children, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is worried about becoming boring, and Samantha (Kim Cattrall), in true Samantha style, is trying to put off the menopause by taking about fifty types of drugs.
An opportunity then arises for the foursome to go to the millionaire’s playground that is Abu Dhabi, which is where the majority of the film is set, although these bits were actually filmed in the slightly less conservative Morocco. Without giving too much away for those that want to see it, this is also where much of the humour occurs, and also a couple of events that lead up to the ending. The film has maintained the same ridiculous numbers of costume changes that were in the first film, but the clothes are far less important in this one. The sex is also less important, as this film is more about the relationships between people, especially between people who are married. It also about the friendship between the four women, with some brilliant flashbacks to New York in the 1980s when they all met. There is a really lovely scene between Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) about how hard they find motherhood, which is something that will ring true with some of the target audience.
The reviews that have slated this film have been written by men…newsflash, it’s not aimed at men. It’s aimed at women. The cinema tonight was completely full of women, of all ages, and we all laughed at the funny bits and cringed at the bad bits. The film is not as sharp and glossy as the first film, but it’s still funny and clever, and shows that women can be happy with who they are, rather than conforming to society’s ideals. Also look out for the cameos from the likes of Miley Cyrus, Omid Djalili and Alice Eve, who plays Erin the nanny, and whose Irish accent is so bad that that alone is worth the ticket price.
