I’m male and straight, therefore not the audience for Sex and the City: The Movie (I was one of only six guys in a movie house packed with women). I’ve seen chick flicks before — The Diary of Bridget Jones and The Devil Wears Prada — and I like them, but this one is in a different class.
It’s way more chick-flicky glossy, yet also way more non-chick-flicky weighty. It’s an urban fairy tale, yes, but it’s also a deep morality fable. In fact, what we have here is a ball of fluff around a core of steel. This is the first out-and-out frothy chick flick that actually attends to serious issues.
Not that you’d know this from any of the reviews. Not a single review of this movie actually reviews the movie. They review the phenomenon instead – girls talking girl talk, fashion, independent career women in New York, etc – but not what the movie is about. This ultimate chick flick takes on an ultimate human theme — forgiveness. A quality severely lacking in our culture.
It is about how horrible men can be, and that it is up to women to learn to forgive them, instead of being horrible right back — in order to give the woman-man thing a chance to work. The horribleness and weakness and brutal blindness of men have placed women in charge of the tenor and texture of all relationships; so how should they act out this responsibility, which is universally shirked by men?
This is the theme of the Carrie and Miranda stories. Both women come in for shabby treatment from their men, and both learn to forgive for the sake of continuing a loving relationship. Both learn that since they're the boss in the relationship, they can afford to be generous. The morality of being a woman includes the duty of generosity. Hell might have no greater fury than a woman scorned — all the more reason for their quality of mercy not to be strained.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
Great review.
Here is the difference in male and female perception. I liked Sex in the City - the TV show. On the other hand, my husband hated it, and it was all because he couldn't wrap his head around the show and get past the title. He thought "sex" before anything else. I saw an intricate relationship between the four women. Oh, the clothes were cool, the shoes, NYC, but what really mattered was the four women.
I don't go to movies, but I can't wait for this to come out in DVD.
2 - anon4mail
Thank you, Adam!!!
3 - anon4mail
Joanne ... Go see the movie in the theater! By doing so you're voting with your wallet, and it matters. As this article points out, Hollywood and its many critics are misogynistic. If we're ever going to have another great movie about intelligent women over 30, we need to put our money where our opinion is.
4 - Jordan Richardson
If Hollywood is misogynistic, where was this movie made?
5 - Larry Gossett
Deep movies or tv shows are rare these days. All the flash and camera tricks are great eye candy, but it is the reason why nobody cares anymore about morales anymore. Shallowness, sexism, and just plain blah(for lack of a better word). I think, though, that putting the sex scene at the end is just another example of trying to resolve problems with sex. Sex is not the answer to marital/relationship problems. It is just another sex scene regardless of the who is pleasing who or why or how hard. I am sick of the sex in movies, implied or actual. It's getting old, really old. Am not gay or would I ever consider such a terrible thing for that is an abomination. This society is a violent, miserable, blind, wretched, poor, nightmare. The Holy Bible makes this clear. This movie is just another, although deep which is nice, but still another example of sex and violence permeating everything. It's overkill. If I want superficial, I will watch Clueless. If I want deep and meaningful, I would watch Little House On The Prairie. TV shows like that are much better than the stuff we have now. Black and white movies of the 30's through the 60's are far better than the stuff we have now, but I didn't buy a widescreen, high-def tv for b&w movies. lol. Horton Hears A Who, Ice Age, Transformers, Harry Potter, and Spiderwick Chronicles. oh yeah. anyway, I don't watch movies like this and will not watch it at the theater or on dvd. have not and will not. I find this whole discussion rather silly. peoples lives should not be made into movies like this, real but exaggerated or imainary but realistic. It hurts to see marriages and relationships suffer and hear of this on the news when come jeolous husband/bf murders his wife so he can have the other girl, money, power, or anything else. Maybe if Clinton did win, things would change, but the Revelations suggest they will change...half the population whiped from the face of the earth. two hundred+ million killed in the US alone. Now that's change...hehehe. my kind. hear that Obama, change.
6 - Adam Ash
Larry:
You're some bizarro from another dimension. Revelations!? WTF?
Adam Ash.