Sex And The City 2: Girls, glamour, and some growing up

Entertainment, Films - By admin on Monday, June 14, 2010 - 15:46

Two years after the first big-screen version of the television series, SATC is back with all its characteristic bling and fun. And this time the four women are blazing across the Middle East. Padmalatha Ravi presents a review

The movie has been trashed by every reviewer worth her salt. I am not a big fan of the show and I thought the first movie was a Hollywood formula movie at best; but certainly entertaining. The girl bonding in the movie is what worked for me. So when it was time for SATC 2, a bunch of girl friends, all dressed up on a Saturday afternoon, land up at the theater. All of us had read the reviews that morning and it was rotten tomatoes all the way, so we braced ourselves. The movie opens with a very gay wedding and despite Liza Minnelli doing the chirpy number “all the single women” at the wedding, we realised that reviews weren’t off the mark.

However, I will still stick my neck out here and say I liked it. It wasn’t just sex, shoes and closet space anymore. There were some real issues there. Carrie, the eternal city girl and romantic, has to come to terms with the mundane marriage musings. Miranda, for whom work comes before anything, finds herself being shut down by her new boss. The eternal home body Charlotte is in a fix over demanding days of motherhood and Samantha has a tough time accepting her menopause. And they come around the issues in true Hollywood style. And in a bizarre twist of tale they even fight off the rigid Islamic traditions in Abu Dhabi!

It is a huge departure from the ‘my boyfriend sleeps on the wrong side of the bed-I am not getting enough sex-how do I get my hands on the latest choos’ routine. And that’s what I liked about SATC 2. In the middle of all the madness in Abu Dhabi, Miranda realises that her boss was nasty to her because he wasn’t comfortable with an independent woman of intellect. Charlotte learns that it is ok to want a moment away from her screaming babies. The part where Charlotte confesses to Miranda that she doesn't want to lose the highly efficient nanny because everyone's suggesting that the super sexy nanny is a threat to her marriage. The confession is priceless! I was very surprised to see Carrie and Big having to explain their decision to remain childless. Also how children make marriage simpler in a way, because then you see you don’t have to feel terribly guilty about not working on the “sparkle”. The one woman who comes off top of things in the maddest of scenes is Samantha Jones. Her character has always been OTT and that’s why she’s loved. This movie takes OTT to another level altogether and yet she’s the most entertaining of the lot.

While Miranda and Charlotte are your everyday women with loads of help from fashion labels, Carrie comes off as this woman in 40s who is refusing to give up on her girlish ways, at times to the point of being annoying. Samantha is the woman who knows her mind, gets what she wants and doesn’t feel guilty about it.

The Abu Dhabi fiasco is the American way of saying “you might be the hot bed for investment but you ain’t gonna be cool like us ever”. But you do get a glimpse of what women face and what they do to remain sane in an overtly conservative society. The foursome raise some very pertinent questions in very subtle manner.

May be that’s what was the problem. The movie wanted to touch upon issues and yet maintain the magic of SATC. May be it was a bit too grown up for the multiplex crowd…

There were plenty of things that didn’t work in the movie. Plenty. But for that you’ve got plenty of well paid critics to turn to.