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Movie review: Sex in the City 2
The Sex in the City gal pals are back, this time visiting Abu Dhabi in Sex in the City 2.
Sex in the City 2 : Pushing The Limits of Fantasy
By Sandra Olmsted
The fantasy world created in the Sex and the City franchise is certainly a great escape from reality, but writer-director Michael Patrick King may have gone too far with Sex and the City 2, and, in the process, revealed the abysmal underbelly of the fantasy.
Although the plot makes little sense and the characters are revealed as shallow and self-defeating, the clothes and sets are big, luscious, and over the top, and if lavish costumes and sets are all women want from a film about women, then Sex in the City 2 will satisfy them. However, if women want the story to make sense and these women to be the smart, struggling women that the series created, this isn’t the film it ought to have been.
The first big moment in the film is an outlandishly gay wedding that looks like a 1930s MGM musical and features Liza Minnelli as the “preacher” performing the ceremony, which makes little sense, and a musical number which foreshadow the lack of intelligence that King will ask the audience to swallow as the film progresses.
Meanwhile, the girls are all, as usual, in the midst of crises, but most notably, in terms of the plot, are Carrie’s and Samantha’s respective crises. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is discovering that married life isn’t as exciting as being single because Big (Chris Noth) would like to spend some evenings at home.
Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is heading into menopause, taking and applying every hormone replacement therapy available, and still finding the time to run a successful publicity office and bed every available and willing man. Even with the help of a sexy, braless nanny, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) can’t handle being a mom because her two little girls aren’t perfect little darlings requiring little attention or nurturing. When she foolishly makes cupcakes with them while wearing her vintage white Valentino skirt, it comes as no surprise that the skirt suffers for Charlotte’s stupidity.
Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), whose crisis is more real, gets more sympathy when a vile new boss inspires her to quit her job.
When an Arab sheik approaches Samantha to publicize a resort in Abu Dhabi, the four girls all fly off on an all-expense paid, $22,000 a night dream vacation; however, the first sign of trouble is Samantha’s hormone replacement therapy being confiscated at the airport.
Abu Dhabi being a drug-free zone should have been the first indication that the girls might want to be on their best behavior, but anyone familiar with the franchise will know this won’t happen. What follows is a series of improbable incidents amidst crotch and cleavage shots. All but Samantha make some attempt at dressing modestly.
The girls sing “I am Woman” in a Karaoke nightclub. Carrie runs into an old flame, goes on a date, and then feels guilty. Samantha meets Rikard “Dick” Spirit (Max Ryan), has too much fun in public, and gets arrested.
The plotline is full of holes: Why did the girls need to leave their luggage at the hotel when they needed to make a stop on the way to the airport? What New Yorker who would follow a street vendor into a maze-like building, would survive to adulthood? Who would go to a country known for its misogynistic modesty and behave so badly? The term “ugly American” can certainly be applied to Samantha, but Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte aren’t good guests either.
The girls, and I use the term very specifically, come off as bad children who you would not want to visit your home.
They, in fact, behave so badly that it does make one wonder, without advocating that women cover themselves and walk behind men, if the girls could learn some modesty and decorum from the Arab world.
The only scene of any real merit is the one in which Miranda and Charlotte discuss the problems and joys of motherhood over drinks. The film has beautiful costumes and sets, but the image of New York women that is put forward is not in the least pretty. Michael Patrick King should be ashamed.
A New Line Cinema release, Sex in the City 2 runs 146 minutes and is rated R for sexual content and language, but parents are strongly cautioned because the sex scenes push the very upper limit of that R rating.
