Happily ever after, with love and chic clothes

This film, over-long for non-believers, a mere capsule for avid fans, celebrates the HBO series that went on for years and features the same tight quartet of women whose Jewish princess centerpiece is the inimitable spotlight-grabber and narrator Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), a chic New York newspaper and magazine writer who's forever trying to secure her relationship with the well-heeled Mr. Big (the suave and appropriately king size Chris Noth).

Carrie, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Samantha (Kim Cantrell) are each in their own way as a wag has written "appallingly shallow and narcissistic." Well yeah. I mean duh. But that's the way you need to be to model $500 Manolo shoes and glossy designer dresses. A great afternoon for these New York ladies would be trying to nab a billionaire's breakup jewel at Christies, planning a wedding for Sarah Jessica Parker and Mr. Big, or shopping for a bigger more fabulous apartment. It all costs, and then there's the love disappointment. Miranda's dumped her husband because he slept once with another woman, Samantha's in LA bored with her gorgeous and loving boyfriend, Charlotte's obsessing about her health and hoping to get pregnant, and Carries's made a major goof in insisting on a large public wedding with a man who's already been married twice before.

This composite film "realization" of the HBO series, also penned by writer Michael Patrick King, shows that Ms. Parker still knows how to lead the troops. .She has the energy and the heart (well, the gestures, the poses, the pouts). Her voice-overs hold things together. And this "fashion icon," as Parker in "real life" is said to be, has the wasp-waist thinness to balance on those aerial high heels and look great in a succession of glam outfits--as do the other girls, in their different styles. The movie's in its element when they're all together on a New York sidewalk, chattering and dressed to the nines. Their outfits--and above all those designer handbags (price tag willingly on request)--give off their own dazzling radiance. Boy, do clothes matter in this show.

This time there's a message, pushed home by a couple of reconciliations, a miraculous pregnancy, Samantha's return to live in the Big Apple and celebrate her fiftieth birthday: all you need is love. Yeah, sure. But all? Good luck believing that when the dream house is a pre-War Fifth Avenue penthouse with great views and a custom walk-in closet larger than most Manhattan one-bedrooms to house Carrie's Blahniks (and all the other stuff). . .And when a major focus is Fashion Week and selecting Carrie's dresses to keep or toss midway in the movie for her move-up to the penthouse. . . And when a honeymoon at a five-star Mexican resort is canceled but the girls all go there anyway, so we and they can enjoy a food poisoning joke that breaks Carries's major funk. You shake your head. But unless you're a major party-pooper, you've also got to smile. Stuff this obviously superficial and fan-tailored is hard to get wrought up about. Hard to understand why The New Yorker's usually witty and suave Anthony Lane lavished over 1,600 words on demolishing this movie. Talk about losing your cool. Talk about breaking a butterfly upon a wheel.

The sequences are humanized and warmed up by pairing Carrie off with a smart but love-lorn new black assistant, "Saint Louise from St. Louis"--played by the irresistible Jennifer Hudson. Nice touch (or touch-up?). Louise shows she's okay for inclusion by the fact that she too carries expensive designer handbags, even though hers are rented. There are also the requisite gay men, this time enlisted as planners for Carrie's glitzy wedding. They don't get to have sex, only a furtive kiss--on New Year's Eve. Perfunctory nods to minorities not withstanding, nothing will change the fact that--even if they're there for each other in time of need--these ladies are brittle and self-centered and cut off from 98% of the world's real issues. But are they hurting anyone? I don't think so. They entertained me.

That's why this movie is a Guilty Pleasure. Sex and the City seems not at all trail-blazing ten years later and on the big screen, but it remains a celebration of how middle-class single (or emotionally single) urban (very urban) white women can (or might) attain a level of glamor previously accessible only to wives of rich men. It's still better that way: that's where Mr. Big comes in. Maybe there are women like this now and they bond like this. But that's not the point. Whether this is rom-com or chick flick, it's a celebration of gloss--and of brassy New York life. The Devil Wears Prada had some of the same Material Girl fashionista beauties to enjoy, indeed arguably more of them (and with less emphasis on the price tags), but this provides a sense of togetherness--at least the hope that such a world is accessible not just to a Vogue Queen Bee but to a Vogue drone and her mates. And hey, this is a way more cheerful time-waster than The Dark Knight. It's bright and--moments of heartbreak not withstanding--cheerful stuff. And though as hollow as its principals, it's careful, in this posthumous celluloid celebration, to show that it has a good heart.

_________________
©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.