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Advantages: You will laugh and cry.... even if you're a man

Disadvantages: If you don't care about the characters it will drag on and depress the hell out of you

At last! Four years after the popular television series ended, fans were eagerly awaiting this movie. Let's get the bad news out of the way first... It is a very down beat film. The witty one liners and quips that made the TV show so much more than a dramatic re-telling of a Cosmo problem page were not apparent. When one of the biggest jokes of the film involves the word "Mexicoma," you know you're in trouble. However, the serious tone of the film was more fitting for the characters at this stage in their lives. A forty something with a husband / child / gigantic mortgage (delete as applicable) is going to have different concerns than a 30 something who isn't sure if she should go on a second date with that guy who is a bad kisser, or how to deal with her boyfriend's skid-marked underwear.

The gloomy scenes are mercifully interspersed with plenty of glossy catwalk shows, glamorous photo shoots and the usual quick change of outfits. (In certain scenes Sarah Jessica Parker becomes little more than a paper doll for our viewing pleasure, whether it is staging a mock fashion show with the contents of her impressive closet, or trying on designer wedding dresses.

I'm not sure how much of this movie really rang true for me. Would a man like Big really bottle out at the last minute, after such a long and torturous dating history? I'm not sure that Carrie should have been quite so forgiving - ok, so she may have got a little carried away (oops -pun not intended!) with the wedding preparations, but doesn't everyone? The normal reaction would be "Phew, I'm glad that's over, now we can get on with the rest of our lives." Not "OK, I don't like the way you planned this wedding, so I'm outta here." I felt that if this had happened ten years ago, Carrie might have moved on and dated others, just as she has after every other dating disaster. However, because she is 40 (or, by my calculations, 42 - how did she only age two years in the four years since the series ended?!) and loves Big, she accepts his misdemeanours.

To be honest, I thought Samantha was the weak link in this movie. She doesn't really have a storyline. Except for being horny (so what else is new?) and putting on (non existent) weight. (Seriously - her stomach is less than washboard and this is seen as a massive crisis in her life!) By the end, she is back on the singles market again - at the age of fifty. How long can she really go on sleeping around before it really starts to look tragic?

There have been complaints that Jennifer Hudson's character was a token ethinic minority, but I liked the way we were reminded of what love and life is like when you are in your twenties, and she introduced a sassy young character into a film which was fairly downbeat in tone.

Having said all this, I loved the movie. I love the characters so much that I would have enjoyed this film if it had consisted of the actors reading the phone book. As long as they were wearing really cool clothes, of course.

Learn more about this author, Becky Clough.
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