Let me start by saying I’m a really big fan of the show. I own and have watched the entire series many times over, loved the first movie, and I also loved this one. I loved it so much, I may just go see it again. I laughed so hard I missed some of it I’m sure. At one point, Samantha is in shorts and half naked, in the middle east, flipping off a bunch of men who are ogling in shock at her after she has dropped her condoms on the ground. All this in the middle of a hot flash. These men were going to pray.
There seems to be 2 kinds of SATC fans. There’s the kind who love the show and the characters, but also realize that these women are pretty ridiculous sometimes and shake their heads at the preposterous situations they get into. The kind who feels nothing but gratitude and joy about her own relationship and life after viewing a glimpse into theirs. The kind who goes to the movie on a Saturday night, with their best girl friend, dressed in jeans and sneakers. Me.
Then there’s the other kind. The kind who seem to look up to these women, and longs to be one of them. The kind who agree with Carrie when she’s being an overindulgent selfish brat. The kind who goes to the movie with every woman she knows apparently, dressed to the nines in full makeup, heels and that 40$ dress she bought at Zellers. Not me.
As much as the SATC movie is a guilty pleasure, I don’t see it as a special occasion to dress up. I don’t need an excuse to dress up. If I feel like it, I’ll get dressed up in heels for my husband when we’re going out together. Or whenever I feel like it. Just because the characters on screen get to wear thousands of dollars worth of clothes and shoes doesn’t mean it’s an occasion for your best Aldo shoes and that dress you got for the Christmas party a few months ago. That’s me though, and I fully accept that there are different kinds of women out there. I just don’t hang out with them.
Now back to the movie. In this one, Carrie is bored of her married life after only 2 years. She’s upset that Big won’t take her out to fancy restaurants every night, and gets down right pissed when he brings home take-out, AGAIN! The horror! Miranda finds out that her male New York lawyer boss is a chauvinist. Shocking! Charlotte discovers that being a mother is difficult. What?! And Samantha tries ever so hard to turn back the hands of time and cope with *cue dramatic music* menopause! Full of clever comic relief, this process seems to be pretty easy, thanks to Suzanne Somers’s book.
The movie starts with the Gayest Gay wedding you have ever seen. At least, that’s what they were trying very hard to tell us ad nauseam. It felt like they were poking fun at the Gayest Gay wedding. Like it was something to be jostled about instead of what it should’ve been: a sacred happy moment where 2 people love each other and want to share it with their closest friends and Liza Minnelli.
The next part of our film takes us to each of the aforementioned situations in which the women find themselves overwhelmed with their own remarkably difficult lives. Carrie doesn’t want to become an old married couple. If it’s going to be “me and you, just us two”, she needs sparkle. Miranda quits her job. Charlotte locks herself in the pantry after being an idiot. Let me elaborate on this one. While making cupcakes, her 2 year old is crying and her 5 year old wants her attention. All this, while she’s wearing a vintage white skirt. See where I’m going here? This seemed to be the perfect time to make a call to seek Carrie’s insight on whether or not the hot, braless Irish nanny is a threat to her marriage. Why didn’t she wait the 5 minutes for the nanny to get there to make her call? After the cupcakes are iced and her 5 year old was busy with Tits McGee and she could complain out of ear shot of her impressionable child? Why wasn’t she wearing something dark, so she wouldn’t care if she got red hand prints on her ass? Who knows. She lost her mind and locked herself up in the pantry until the Irish wonder came to the rescue.
All are going crazy, except Samantha, who is all too happy to take the girls on an all expense paid trip to Abu Dhabi, where they will each have their own car, butler and a suite that would put anyone’s house to shame.
They set off and run into old friends, make new ones, perform some karaoke. Vitamins get taken away, passports get left at shoe huts, Charlotte finally lets loose and dishes about how hard having kids is, even with the help of a full time nanny and no job. Ex-boyfriends are kissed. All in all, it was pretty fun.
Here are some of the things I could’ve lived without. The whole middle east stereotyping was a little much at times. We get it, it’s different there. It’s like the 30′s apparently, circa “It Happened One Night.” Women are covered head to toe, however, it would seem they all have designer clothing under their burkas. Yup, they do in this movie. For ridiculous reasons, the 4 women end up in burkas. Carrie decides to hail a cab by recreating Claudette Colbert’s iconic leg flash, and off they go home. With the exception of Samantha’s air humping, finger giving antics, I could’ve lived without this whole part of the movie.
I also could’ve lived without the condescending Carrie fan, inexplicably at the Stanford/Anthony wedding. This fan claimed to BE Carrie. I’m so you, her and her ridiculous husband say. Yet upon hearing that the 45 year old Carrie and 55 year old Big are choosing to remain childless, she stopped all adoration and decided to be appalled instead. Shocked even. Just you two? Really? Prompting Carrie to go on a tail spin of stupid emotions, where she lets other people dictate her own life and relationships, even at 45 years old. Did I mention all this took place at the Gayest Gay wedding, where a union just took place where a child will not come out of?
I hate people like this. People that act like not having kids is mean or sad in some way. It’s not like we all have kids hidden away in jars somewhere, trapped until we decide to have them. It’s not mean to decide kids aren’t for you. They don’t exist yet, so we can’t be held responsible for not having feelings for people who don’t exist. Some people have partners who make them happy and, even after 10 years, can’t get enough of each other. That’s right folks, some of us are just lucky that way.
Let me digress here and vent a little about how stupid people like this are. It is MY opinion that when you get married, you should do so under the understanding that the 2 of you should be enough. Kids are an extra added bonus to enrich your life if you choose to have them. Like dogs, and an espresso machine. However, unlike an espresso machine, kids are also entitled to the same level of enrichment from the people having them, and I fear too many people are bringing kids into this world for their own benefit, and not so much that of the child’s. Too harsh? Too bad. A child is entitled to the best possible life it can be given, and it’s up to the parents to make that happen. Wanting someone there on your birthdays and holidays and to take care of you when you get old is selfish.
If you can’t spend the rest of your life happy with this one person, why are you marrying them? In the end, it’s just the 2 of you anyway. Kids grow up and quite possibly will not visit as often as you like. You need to make sure you choose a partner who will be enough for you, or else you will be unhappy and divorced as soon as the kids are old enough to fend for themselves. Not everyone wants to be parents, no matter how much they like children. Some of us were lucky enough to get enough love from one person, and don’t need many people to make them happy. This does not make us, yes us, bad people. This makes us free to babysit whenever you feel like locking yourself up in a pantry.
Wow, where did that come from? Well, back to the actual topic at hand here….
All is well in the SATC world, Carrie realizes, for the umpteenth time, that she’s not like other women, and therefore won’t end up like them. Bored and familiar at home with her lover. In sweats. This movie is for fans of the show. Be it those of us who shake our heads at the ridiculous things they do while we watch in jeans, or those who choose to admire the lady’s crazy antics and watch in short dresses and in heels. You will go see it if you’re a fan, and you won’t if you’re not. It is pretty ridiculously funny though. My goodness.