'Sex and the City 2' is not (quite) a romantic comedy

By Sarah Sluis

The reviews are in for Sex and the City 2, and some of them are positively scathing. If you start with the New York Observer review, which opened with "The only thing memorable about Sex and the City 2 is the number two part, which describes it totally, if you get my drift," and work down from there, you have a pretty good idea of what people are saying.

Sex and the City 2 is an extremely easy target, with its over-the-top antics and tenuous connection to real life (at least in movie form). But it's also worth noting what it's not. It's not a story that ends when the girl and the guy get together. And, as I mentioned in my own review, the movie is about how sex, the city, and relationships bond the women to one another. The men in the story are always less important than the friendships, and that's what sets this series apart. It's also what makes some people call the show feminist, empowered, and things like that. It's like the teen movie Now and Then, but with cocktails and crazy clothes.

Writer/director/producer Michael Patrick King's interview with the Wall Street Journal best illustrates how this works (my bolding).

"Mr. King admitted that 'Sex and the City' and its great volume of stories has affected the romantic comedies that have come after. "It's not that they're stealing from us, but we stole from life," he said. "And we got there first. But they've lost the comedy in romantic comedies, or they've lost the romantic. Like girls are doofuses and they're sneaking into beauty parlors and dying each other's hair blue," Mr. King said, referring to the Kate Hudson film Bride Wars."

At one point (when "Sex and the City" was a series), it did feel like it was emulating (a more glamorous than yours) real life, describing the details of socializing in Manhattan and the silly quirks of relationships. I don't feel that the movies capture that feeling as well as the series, which had an added intimacy by being televised in one's own home. I also think the costuming got way out of control--I sincerely doubt anyone would wear a ball gown skirt and T-shirt in a Middle Eastern market. It just looks weird.

Sex and the City has its many detractors, including those that despise its particular brand of feminism. The series itself was supposed to be revolutionary, because it had independent women who were single long after they were supposed to be. As King says to the WSJ, "Sex and the City is about outsiders. Single girls as lepers, should have been married by now. It's the reason the whole thing took off." However, the fact that three out of four of the women are married by the second movie may negate this point. Was "Sex and the City" merely reflecting the fact that people were no longer marrying and having children in their early twenties?

I'm at the point where I hope there won't be a Sex and the City 3 (I've had my fill), but I will also be eagerly awaiting the box office returns from today, opening day. If I can choose between last year's juggernaut Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Sex and the City 2, I'd definitely like to see more of the latter.