The "Sex and the City" movie introduced me to Carrie Bradshaw and her circle. I had never watched the series. I came to the film without preconceptions and enjoyed it thoroughly. After reading this site I began to doubt my own virgin perceptions. Had I ignorantly bought fool's gold when the real pay dirt payoff lay in the cable series?
So I viewed the First Season of the HBO series, becoming utterly charmed by the four main women negotiating the singles dance in 1998 New York. The IMDb site for the show has a lot of savage reactions posted, most of which I have to reject. I found all dozen 1998 episodes quirky and clever and perky and groundbreaking and sharply written and slyly acted.
I have known women of that born-in-the-Sixties generation and of my own (which came of age in the Sixties) who talk and act like these folks--though not as flamboyantly or consistently entertainingly. "Sex" trades in exaggeration for artistic effect, after all. Some caustic posters seem to confuse louder-than-life satire about Eros and New York with propaganda for la dolce vita in Manhattan.
Forearmed with an appreciation of the series' birth year, I re-saw the film at a revival house. This time I came in warily, ready to judge ruthlessly. I liked it even more. I can understand the substantive criticisms on this site. The First Season had a chipper, often ironic tone, lively and saw-edged. Some posters missed enjoying that all over again.
The motion picture offers a defiantly darker production. That includes visually darker. In both theaters the image on the screen was subdued, the colors more muted than "Persuasion" (1995). While the series had bright summery lighting favoring the fashions and skin tones, the big screen sequel seems seriously autumnal, far gone toward winter.
The film definitely has a richer and more complex emotional range than the First Season. The blithe charm of the TV version has gained in wisdom, pain, regret, and savor. We're dealing with very bitter dark chocolate here, piquantly flavored and highly nutritious, but not always easy on a naïve tongue.
Then again, three of the ladies have crossed into their 40's. These midlife years hold different dynamics for them than their end-of-youth 30's. Two married and have children. As Miranda tells her husband, she changed herself for him. She can't go back to living as a rapier-tongued mantrap, not with a child in tow and years of stability with Steve behind her. The fourth, Samantha, has gone through chemotherapy and fringes on 50. She actually thinks outside her personal hedonistic box, though not comfortably.
The acting wondrously brings me closer to women I'd like to have in my life. Sarah Jessica Parker particularly offers an understated, nuanced, very complete portrayal of a 41-year-old career woman buoyed by her friends and adrift in her long-ripening romance. The First Season never presented Carrie at the fresh-into-town "My Sister Eileen" (1942/1955) stage. Interestingly, the movie brings in Jennifer Hudson to fill exactly that role of someone escaping the provinces for NYC. St. Louise from "Trolley Song" St. Louis shows us a phase of aware-yet-wide-eyed single womanhood we missed from the four friends.
The series began 10 years into the women's association, though the curtain rose on them at a point where things had only started to gel in their lives. The misfires made for humor and heartache. A decade further down the road the challenges come differently, the missteps have major consequences. We're not talking flubbed dates ending in erotic disappointment; here miscues can shatter valued life partnerships and alter personal destinies.
"Sex and the City" has evolved from its cable roots in Noel Cowardly wit to a full-flowering Anton Chekhov-style comedy. Measure the film against the Louis Malle/Andre Gregory/David Mamet "Vanya on 42nd Street" (1994) or John Gielgud's "The Cherry Orchard" (1962). Seriously. The writing, the performances, and the deep undercurrents traveling through "Sex" will hold up under comparison. You will likely prefer the Chekhov, but this production prowls that uneasy landscape and provokes the same rueful laughter. Like single malt Scotch which has tamed its fire in wood, the subject matter, the characters, the approach have all matured from HBO days.
I would unhesitatingly program the movie in a female ensemble festival alongside "The Women" (1939), "All About Eve" (1950), "Interiors" (1978), "Little Women" (1994), "How to Make an American Quilt" (1995), and "The Hours" (2002). It would double-bill very interestingly with "The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007). I'm hoping we can revisit Carrie, her girl friends, their mates, and all their associates in another decade, not as an exercise in nostalgia or to awaken a mummy-wrapped franchise, but as part of an ongoing look at female relationships gaining layers as time goes by.
So I viewed the First Season of the HBO series, becoming utterly charmed by the four main women negotiating the singles dance in 1998 New York. The IMDb site for the show has a lot of savage reactions posted, most of which I have to reject. I found all dozen 1998 episodes quirky and clever and perky and groundbreaking and sharply written and slyly acted.
I have known women of that born-in-the-Sixties generation and of my own (which came of age in the Sixties) who talk and act like these folks--though not as flamboyantly or consistently entertainingly. "Sex" trades in exaggeration for artistic effect, after all. Some caustic posters seem to confuse louder-than-life satire about Eros and New York with propaganda for la dolce vita in Manhattan.
Forearmed with an appreciation of the series' birth year, I re-saw the film at a revival house. This time I came in warily, ready to judge ruthlessly. I liked it even more. I can understand the substantive criticisms on this site. The First Season had a chipper, often ironic tone, lively and saw-edged. Some posters missed enjoying that all over again.
The motion picture offers a defiantly darker production. That includes visually darker. In both theaters the image on the screen was subdued, the colors more muted than "Persuasion" (1995). While the series had bright summery lighting favoring the fashions and skin tones, the big screen sequel seems seriously autumnal, far gone toward winter.
The film definitely has a richer and more complex emotional range than the First Season. The blithe charm of the TV version has gained in wisdom, pain, regret, and savor. We're dealing with very bitter dark chocolate here, piquantly flavored and highly nutritious, but not always easy on a naïve tongue.
Then again, three of the ladies have crossed into their 40's. These midlife years hold different dynamics for them than their end-of-youth 30's. Two married and have children. As Miranda tells her husband, she changed herself for him. She can't go back to living as a rapier-tongued mantrap, not with a child in tow and years of stability with Steve behind her. The fourth, Samantha, has gone through chemotherapy and fringes on 50. She actually thinks outside her personal hedonistic box, though not comfortably.
The acting wondrously brings me closer to women I'd like to have in my life. Sarah Jessica Parker particularly offers an understated, nuanced, very complete portrayal of a 41-year-old career woman buoyed by her friends and adrift in her long-ripening romance. The First Season never presented Carrie at the fresh-into-town "My Sister Eileen" (1942/1955) stage. Interestingly, the movie brings in Jennifer Hudson to fill exactly that role of someone escaping the provinces for NYC. St. Louise from "Trolley Song" St. Louis shows us a phase of aware-yet-wide-eyed single womanhood we missed from the four friends.
The series began 10 years into the women's association, though the curtain rose on them at a point where things had only started to gel in their lives. The misfires made for humor and heartache. A decade further down the road the challenges come differently, the missteps have major consequences. We're not talking flubbed dates ending in erotic disappointment; here miscues can shatter valued life partnerships and alter personal destinies.
"Sex and the City" has evolved from its cable roots in Noel Cowardly wit to a full-flowering Anton Chekhov-style comedy. Measure the film against the Louis Malle/Andre Gregory/David Mamet "Vanya on 42nd Street" (1994) or John Gielgud's "The Cherry Orchard" (1962). Seriously. The writing, the performances, and the deep undercurrents traveling through "Sex" will hold up under comparison. You will likely prefer the Chekhov, but this production prowls that uneasy landscape and provokes the same rueful laughter. Like single malt Scotch which has tamed its fire in wood, the subject matter, the characters, the approach have all matured from HBO days.
I would unhesitatingly program the movie in a female ensemble festival alongside "The Women" (1939), "All About Eve" (1950), "Interiors" (1978), "Little Women" (1994), "How to Make an American Quilt" (1995), and "The Hours" (2002). It would double-bill very interestingly with "The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007). I'm hoping we can revisit Carrie, her girl friends, their mates, and all their associates in another decade, not as an exercise in nostalgia or to awaken a mummy-wrapped franchise, but as part of an ongoing look at female relationships gaining layers as time goes by.