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Last Updated: Jul 25th, 2008 - 11:25:48 |
What a difference four years can make.
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| Jennifer Hudson plays a part in the "Sex and the City" movie. |
When we last saw author Carrie Bradshaw and the other chicks from “Sex and the City,” their $500 shoes, designer purses and pricey cosmopolitan drinks fit nicely into an America flush with cash from sold, flipped or refinanced houses. If, during their 30-minute episodes on HBO, the foursome reinforced anything in the cause of women’s rights, it was the right to both shop hard and love hard—to your own beat, to your credit card limit and, we assume, to the limit of your quantity of condoms.
Fast forward to 2008 and to a movie nearly two-and-a-half hours long, and the material obsession in the Manhattan world of the women seems somewhat out of step with today’s foreclosures, $4-a-gallon gas and rising food costs. So, for today’s movie-goers, that part about shopping hard will either land like a thud or continue to circle our heads like fantasies of couture fashion or multi-million-dollar homes dropped in our laps. That other matter of loving hard, however, has not gone out of style, and neither has our fascination for the possibility for a happy-ever-after.
The movie “Sex and the City” caters to our fascination through the ongoing relationship issues of all the women—Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda—but most especially through those of Carrie and her boyfriend John, known to series fans as Big. The story is quick to remind us that Carrie is 40 now (in real life, actress Sarah Jessica Parker is listed as 43 and actor Chris Noth as 53) and that she and Big have been dating off and on for ten years. As the couple toys with the idea and drama of getting married, their Mars-Venus affair continues to unfold and enters cinema’s romantic netherworld of middle age.
As does the TV series, the movie draws us into the life of Carrie. Her emotions (and aging) are laid bare for all of us to see. On the other hand, Big is rendered as a big paradox—handsome and sure in one moment and, in the next, obtuse and confused. At obvious moments in the plot, Big is rendered as someone who makes no sense and, therefore, does things that make no sense. And while Carrie can count on her girls to surround and support her, Big exists in a sort of friendless universe, with none of his “boys” ever around. Poor Big! He is a modern-day prince charming saddled with issues but, at the same time, he is not really real. (Even the name Big seems meant to evoke questions and mystery.) Carrie and Big’s relationship is painted as a fairytale too. While the other women have sex onscreen, the intimate life of Carrie-Big is never shown. Have you ever noticed that? In one movie scene, when her friends admit how frequently they “do it,” Carrie won’t chime in, and only offers that when he does do it, Big really knows how to do it.
Yes, singer-actress Jennifer Hudson is in the movie and, lest you be fooled, her entrance comes as late as her mention in this review. She plays Louise, a young woman who is hired by Carrie as an assistant. Hudson does a good job and, minus one questionable wig, looks good, but her one drop of chocolate doesn’t make a swirl in the white world of “Sex and the City.” No, she is not inducted into the sisterhood but Carrie does seem to feel for her as a big sister/mentor in the ways of life and love.
While there are many laugh-out-loud moments in the movie, it could be that some series fans can only love Carrie and the girls in those 30-minute bites that recall happier days. It could be that after more than two hours of them, Carrie will look damn near anorexic, Charlotte will sound too neurotic, Miranda will be too bitchy and Samantha will be too slutty. But if, using the now-famous lingo of football coach Dennis Green, these four women are who you thought they were, then “Sex and the City” provides a fitting end to the fairytale. It also represents an end to a long era of relationship navel-gazing by this generation.
Let’s raise a cosmopolitan to that!
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
You can order Esther Iverem's critically praised We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)at Amazon.com or purchase at your favorite bookstore. It makes a wonderful gift! Thanks!
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