No Men In Sight

The young go off in search of love and find only sex. The middle-aged, having found love, search for a way to still have sex. Your friends, though, are constant. As best I can tell that is the meaning of SATC, the movie. The action begins three years after the series ended, with all four of our heroines coupled-up. How they will or will not sustain coupled happiness is the plot that shakes the cosmopolitans.

I attended a crowded matinee screening. Out of the hundred or so in the audience, I believe two were men. Whether you liked or didn't like the series, whether you do or don't think the movie was necessary or is any good, what's clear is that these characters speak loudly to a large population of women, and in this case, in a theater in suburban Pennsylvania, to a large population of women whose lives don't resemble the lives depicted on-screen. The women in the audience applauded when the previews ended and the opening bars of the theme music blared. They yelled at the screen at various points in the film. They applauded again at the end. Maybe they'd all had one or five too many cosmos before going to the theater, but either way my critical opinion matters little in the face of such adoration.

Here's what I liked best about the series, and liked best about the film: the women are allowed to grow older. They struggle a bit at first, but ultimately accept and celebrate their own middle-age. The characters are pretty much exactly my age, and they act it. I'm incredibly glad that all involved understand that no one wants to watch a 43 year-old wandering around in a tu-tu. I'm incredibly glad that the movie's triumphal close was a celebration of Sam's 50th birthday. I'm incredibly glad that these women do get what they want sometimes, but not all the time, and that their journey has been to acceptance of that realistic fact.

Here's what I didn't like about the film: because it felt like two seasons of the TV show condensed into 2.5 hours, little room remained for the male characters to be anything other than plot devices. The film also felt too long. Maybe Michael Patrick King is just so used to the pacing of the half-hour show that he didn't know what to do with the feature length, but it definitely felt too long.

It can never be 1998 again; we've all moved on. Understand that, have a pink drink or two, and you'll be happy to be reunited with Carrie and company.