Yes, it's sagged a bit (haven't we all!) but Sex And The City hasn't lost its sparkle

By Amanda Platell

Lemon twirl: Sarah Jessica Parker attends the world premiere of Sex And The City 2, which sees the four female characters tackling babies, marriage and careers


Sex And The City 2 (15)

Verdict: Escapist fun

Rating: (But two stars for non-fans)

First it was all about 'sex in the city'.

But now the girls have moved on and they have husbands in the city.

Except, of course, man-eater Samantha, who's still having hot sex - but also the occasional hot flushes.

It's a far cry from four thirty-something girls sipping Manhattans looking for love in the Big Apple.

In fact, the new Sex And The City movie should have been called Marriage And the City, because that's what their lives are now all about; and babies, careers, fidelity and old lovers.

Unlike so much of the TV series, the new film contains only two memorable sex scenes.

This could be a lot to do with the fact that our three happily married New Yorkers end up on a girlie week that Samantha has organised in Abu Dhabi, where it seems children must be the result of immaculate conceptions, because, officially, sex is banned.

Of course, like any brilliant concept, it is difficult to keep the momentum going with sparkling scripts and phizzing plots.




Girls having fashion fun: Kristen Davis and Sarah Jessica Parker donned hot pink and yellow dresses for the premiere


And yes, Sex And The City 2 has already predictably attracted a lot of flak.

Some of this (like the blast in yesterday's Mail by fashion writer Hadley Freeman, who said the tireless quartet had 'turned into man-obsessed morons') has come from people who haven't even bothered to see the new film.

But my opinion, after watching a preview yesterday, is that those who say this feisty and funny, once ground-breaking TV series has sold its soul to the big screen are wrong.

Hell's teeth, it's not the Female Eunuch, and was never meant to be. Yes, it was witty and original, but it was not some feminist tome translated to the small screen to placate the sisterhood.

A large part of the success of SATC was that it captured a feeling, a mood of change for women in the Nineties.

It was unashamedly about the four Fs: freedom, fashion, fads and friendship.

It was never about bra-burning. Instead, it was about La Perla and waxing. Not about a woman's right to choose; but about a working woman's right to Jimmy Choos.

And one of the reasons we loved Sex And the City was because we looked upon Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda as friends - like old school or university colleagues. Once made, never parted. We share a past.


Stars: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall pose at the premiere


As for the eponymous 'sex', it's not long before the movie delivers the first coupling.

Predictably, Samantha hooks up with the best man at a gay wedding - a marathon that lasts most of the night.
And the second involves Duracell Samantha, again.

This time the scene is the bonnet of a Jeep as she grapples with a rugged architect called Rickhart Spirt - a name leadenly crafted to allow her to made a rather obvious risque joke.

Most of the humour stems from what must be the most camp wedding ever. Although the idea can be ridiculed as pandering to a politically-correct agenda, the gay marriage actually sets the moral theme for the film.

Groom-to-be Anthony (or 'broom' as he prefers to be called, being a cross between a 'groom' and a 'bride') announces he has no intention of being faithful to his partner.

'Just because I'm getting married doesn't mean i have to change,' he says to an astonished Charlotte, Carrie and Miranda.

And so the scene is set, with the questions posed: 'What does marriage mean? Does it have to be the same for everyone? What if you can't have or don't want children?'

These modern conundrums are core to the movie. Indeed, what's wrong with educated, intelligent women being focused on their husbands and trying to make their marriages work in a world where statistics show that half fail?

And some of the scenes and questions they raise are, as they say in LA, very 'real'. For example, Charlotte's first marriage was wrecked (and her second almost, too) by her near-obsession with having a baby and the trials of IVF.

In the end, she adopted a baby, only then to conceive naturally and find herself with an adorable but naughty toddler and a baby who won't stop crying.

When Miranda and Charlotte find themselves alone together, the two mothers discuss their inner feelings: the sheer exhaustion of trying to be the perfect mother and wife; the guilt at never being there enough for them; their secret delight in being away from their kids.

'I love my girls, but I've enjoyed not being around them,' Charlotte admits.

Then there's Miranda's honesty. Having resigned from her law partnership and sampled life as a stay-at-home mum, she says: 'I love Brady (her son), but being a mother is not enough. I miss my job.'


Together again: The Sex and The City sequel sees the characters travel to Abu Dhabi for a girlie week


Or Carrie's typical dilemma. After two years of marriage, she's finally realised that her husband, Big, prefers watching black-and-white movies on TV in bed to ravishing her.

While she wants to party, he wants to cosy up at home. She wants dinner at the best restaurants, he wants home cooking.

In a classic Carrie-ism, she concludes: 'I'm more Coco Channel than Coq au Vin.'

In order to rediscover the 'sparkle' of their romance and to prise her bloke from the sofa, she goes back to her apartment (which the couple were forced to keep due to collapsed property prices)

Eventually they enjoy a fantastic night together and her husband suggests a solution: a 'five-days-on-two-days-off marriage', with him getting his own flat where he can disappear to do blokey things for a couple of days.

This is hardly the marriage Carrie imagined after more than a decade pursuing this man to the altar.

In truth, Carrie's problems sum up the whole film in that it evaluates how three different women each try to make modern marriage work, and a fourth tries to avoid it.

So amid the fabulous frocks and, of course, more shoes to die for are the kinds of dilemma modern women face everywhere - the balance of career and babies, the choices made in marriage, especially when it's the second or third time around.
Not that such issues make the movie po-faced. It isn't.

Samantha's battle with the menopause is as funny as it is poignant as she stuffs her face with 44 pills every day and hits the oestrogen cream to try to retrieve her libido and fool her body into thinking she's still young.

When someone says she looks 'fabulous' and asks what she's 'had done', she replies: 'Nothing. I'm 100 per cent natural.' What a fib!
At two-and-a-half hours, the movie is probably 45 minutes too long and sluggishly self-indulgent at times. Leaving Manhattan for Abu Dhabi for most of the story was a mistake, too, as at times it feels like a promotional ad from the United Arab Emirates tourist Board.

But there's still enough of the Sex And the City magic for those who fell in love with the show more than a decade ago.

I'm sure women will be queuing with their girlfriends to see the new film. All were probably single when they started watching the TV series, but now have a husband (and maybe an ex or two) and kids, and are juggling family and career like crazy.

Above all, they will get a big warm feeling as the film opens and they recall what it was like to be searching for love and sex, which they always hoped (except in Samantha's case) would be a prelude for an enduring marriage.

So in a way, Sex And the City 2 has come full circle. It has delivered on the promise.

The journey may have been tortuous, but it has now ended.
Nothing is as smart as it was; it's not as edgy, it's not as cute, it's sagged a bit. But then, haven't we all.


source: dailymail