Review: Sex and the City 2

Who isn’t enamored with Sex and the City? Its overreaching appeal satiates the entertainment lust far beyond what its initial demo was intended to be – case in point myself. This series, created by the little network that could, HBO, broke ground in its honesty and portrayal of the modern woman. Love, fashion, friendship, relationships, affairs, shoes, martinis, premieres, glitz, glamour; Sex and the City provided a hyper-reality for its audience to pine for. Since its first airing, Carrie Bradshaw, along with her soulmates Samantha Jones, Miranda Hobbes, and Charlotte York, were welcomed into the homes of millions of viewers the world over with open arms and hearts.

The cultural significance of this series was hard to miss. It opened the floodgates for more groundbreaking programs to try and fill the void left by the Blahnik stilettos in the series’ wake. And since that fateful trip to Paris that saw Big and Carrie reunite, the world had waited with bated breath for the continuation of the storyline, hoping that these two would finally get their acts together and live happily ever after.

Women everywhere got what they wanted when two years ago the first Sex and the City movie hit the big screens. It was time to roll out the pink carpet, grab a cosmo, and reunite with our best friends. And reunite we did, with a movie that essentially was a stringing-together of four episodes, each cheesier than the last. But we didn’t care. Our girls were back. Carrie and Big finally got married (after some outlandish drama that, had the characters instead been stable adults, would never have come to pass); Steve cheated on Miranda but their love was transcendent and they inevitably got back together; Charlotte finally gave birth to a daughter, stretching her loins and her heart open to more motherhood bliss; and Samantha, well, Samantha proved that being “50 and fucking fabulous” is a definite reality for all women. And Jennifer Hudson was thrown into the mix, so that’s always grand.

In any case, audiences were satisfied; critics vilified; and straight men were still left with the did-someone-cut-the-cheese-confused looks on their faces. And after the hype and the hoopla died down; after the DVD hit stores; after we all once again returned to our lacklustre lives; Hollywood has offered us a return to our favourite city with our favourite gals.

The movie begins with the same petty drama that is indicative of any Sex and the City storyline. Is Carrie and Big’s marriage working? Should they have a child? Is “Just me and you, just us two,” enough to satisfy them for the rest of their lives? Or is there something innately wrong with their marriage when a pact for some weekly time off is agreed upon? These are all questions Carrie has to answer, with the help of her friends, throughout the film’s two and a half hours.

The girls travel to Abu Dhabi thanks to a connection Samantha makes at a film premiere. While there, they are treated as the Queens they are, with personal servants at a complex the size of a small village. This escape comes at a pivotal time in each of their lives: Carrie, and her Big woes; Charlotte and her depleting patience for dealing with her children; Miranda and her joblessness; and Samantha and "drying up." While in this exotic and magical land, the girls embark on a couple of poorly written, overly campy mini-adventures, including a camel trip to the middle of the desert dressed in haute couture, and a reunion with Aiden that for Carrie is a sign from the universe. The outfits are absurd, the incidents predictable, and the men unbelievably sexy. But again, it’s our girls, so we don’t care. We forgive and let the parody of what the show once was Carrie on.

As you would expect with a film that has a $10 million wardrobe budget, the plot is thin and veiled with overdramatic reactions to uninspiring events. Samantha provides the most entertainment throughout, peppering the film with her menopausal wackiness including a meeting with a beautiful Dane after which she proclaims she has found “Lawerence of my Labia” and a hilarious denouement surrounded by local men disapproving of her condom stash. Miranda is at the most relaxed any of us has seen her, but her part in this film is more of a supporting role than a leading lady. Charlotte is her usual naïve and conflicted self, worried about her marriage and motherhood. And Carrie is the self-indulgent, mistake-maker we’ve come to love her for.

While nothing about the movie was spectacular, the great, revisited connections we have made are what make this film awe-inciting. Of course, it is going to have the typical happy ending. Of course there is more cheese present than at a dairy farm. Of course it will always go for the cheap laugh and pun play. But Sex and the City 2 has the same girls, with the same issues, and the same styles that we have shared so much with. How could we not be satiated and satisfied?