The Girls Are Back In Town – Sex and the City: The Movie out now
Perhaps the ultimate Girl’s Night In movie has arrived on cinema screens, following Monday night’s premiere at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square here in London – of course we’re flattered that Carrie and the girls chose to unveil their first big screen performance here in the UK, but we can’t help feeling that perhaps their native New York would have been a more fitting choice.
At the end of the day, this isn’t a movie about geography, it’s about the two ‘L’s – Labels and Love. The girls are back with a bang four years on since the series wrapped and it doesn’t seem that much has changed. Sarah Jessica Parker has once again stepped into the Manalos of Carrie Bradshaw, Noo Yoik writer on a quest for true love – “real love… ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love…” – armed with a passion for fashion, Cosmopolitans and internal monologue. Maneater Samantha has relocated to the west coast, having shacked up with aspiring movie star Smith in LA, Miranda is having problems juggling her professional, domestic and social life, whilst Charlotte, seems to be the only one enjoying marital bliss.
The on-off will-they-wont-they thing with Carrie and John James “Big” Preston is central to the plot of the movie – a scuppered attempt at marriage sees the four girls reunite and jet off for Mexico, where the erstwhile couple had planned their honeymoon where they detox and recollect themselves.
That’s the Love sorted, now what about the Labels? Well, in the first half hour of the film, the audience is treated to the most unsubtle carousel of product placement since the whole ‘Advil’ section from Wayne’s World – a Louis Vuitton handbag here, Vivienne Westwood number there, labels aplenty are on prominent display in what already been called the ‘extended Vogue photoshoot’ sequence of the movie. Speaking of labels, critics have also been quick to apply adjectives such as ’shallow’, ‘half-hearted’, and ‘materialistic’.
Does the fairy tale end happily ever after for any of the girls though? Well, that would be telling. However, with an eventual DVD release on the horizon, DVD Rental providers, anticipating demand, have already added a sign-up option for the Sex an the City: The Movie, along with each season box set already available to order, perfect if you want to get reacquainted with the girls and their antics before settling down to watch the big one.
