Sex and the City Review

While I certainly grant that I, as a straight male, am not the intended audience of this, Sex and the City is, objectively, not a very good movie. When an average episode of the series runs for less than 30 minutes and the film runs for two and half hours there are obviously some issues of an overgrown narrative. Having seen a handful of episodes from the TV run of the SATC I say with some certainty that something has gone awry in translation.

On the whole SATC feels like those putrid ten minutes at the end of a typical American romantic comedy when the couple splits up only to inevitably get back together from some foolhardy grand gesture. Only the ten minute plot is drawn out to roughly fifteen times the length it should be. I don't buy the argument that I should need to embrace the 'fashion' and 'style' of the movie to enjoy it, that's specious. Also, if a wedding dress with a dead bird headpiece is what constitutes style then I'm content to not be in style.

I don't know when Sarah Jessica Parker stopped knowing how to act, but she fails to deliver a single recognizably human emotion here. Kristin Davis, who has great energy and is a magnetic screen presence, is left with almost nothing to do. I found Cynthia Nixon's character so unlikeable that I frankly just didn't give a damn about anything that happened to her. How fans have supported a character like that for years is beyond me. I must say, however, that I really enjoyed Kim Cattrall's work here. Cattrall manages to bring the most life to any of the roles, her emotional scenes are the most genuine and her wit is sharp. Her "you made a little joke" line to Parker was my favorite moment of the movie. Chris Noth's Mr. Big is so entirely unbelievable as a human being that I could barely watch his scenes.

Poor Jennifer Hudson is reduced to playing Parker's help in a manner that is more than a little stereotypical. The male supporting players (Jason Lewis, Evan Handler and David Eigenberg) all do a nice job but have almost nothing to work with. Perhaps I just don't get it and, certainly, SATC isn't directed at my demographic; but objectively it just isn't a very good movie.

Overall Score: 4/10