Sex and the City 2 [MA]

What happens after you say, “I do”? For Carrie Bradshaw, marriage is life on the couch watching TV with Big and eating takeout; not a life she’s ever imagined for herself. Charlotte is struggling as Rose hits the ‘terrible twos’, Miranda’s new senior partner is sending her back to a state of 1950s female impassivity, and Samantha is taking every hormone in existence to trick her 50 year-old body into thinking it’s 35. So when opportunity opens a door to a glamorous holiday in the Middle East, of course all four women are in. Because sometimes, you just need some time away with the girls. 

The glamour, the sparkle, and the sass are all back with Sex and the City 2: just another 2-hour long episode of that classic ‘90s show that has stood the test of time. It’s fair to say that unless we all become androids, these characters, the themes they explore, and this show in general will never go out of style or relevance. 

Whilst it’s the truth universally acknowledged that the sequels are never as good as their predecessors, Sex and the City 2 is an interesting one in regards to that rule because I liked it just as much as the first movie, but when you really look at it, it isn’t better or indeed even the same. 

Writer/director Michael Patrick King continues to use the same structure of the show with voice-over narration from Carrie as well as the central dramas having some relevance to whatever topic she’s writing about. Minus the over-the-shoulder screen read of the big questions that Carrie’s pieces seek to answer, structure-wise the film is exactly like the show and that’s where the main enjoyment lies. 

Beginning with flashbacks that depict horrendous ‘80s fashions and hairstyles, the film reminds us that these are no longer Manhattan girls searching for love, but women who have found their love and happily ever after and are now wondering what else to do. Thus the central dramas are a little different than any we’ve seen them go through before: namely children, juggling marriage and a career, being a newlywed, glass ceilings, and menopause. 

Whilst Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha all still have those little edges of theirs that made us fall in love with them in the first place, they are different women now dealing with still relevant but different problems and thus the dynamics of the audience become a little flimsy as the show that audiences in their teens and twenties fell in love with takes a few steps ahead of them, leaving them somewhat behind. 

But this is not what really drags this film down. The major slip is the fact that there is no real drama to be worked through. No real conflicts that are confronted and overcome. We have these great stories of Carrie adjusting to married life, Charlotte struggling with motherhood, Miranda at the mercy of inferior and intimidated men, and Samantha going through the pause, but none of these stories are properly developed upon to really bring out the complexities and the conflicts within them. What we then have is a film where the girls go on holiday together to unwind from the stress, but nothing happens abroad that works as a catalyst for change or epiphany, thus there is absolutely no development narrative or character-wise and no real point to this movie other than to look shiny and nostalgic. 

A film that relies solely on its characters and the nostalgia of them is not a strong film without the narrative backbone to support it and sadly that sums up this movie: shiny and filled with familiar faces, but spineless. 

Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristen Davis, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Mario Cantone, Willie Garson, Alice Eve, Penelope Cruz, Raza Jaffrey, Walton Nunez, Akhmiss Abdelmalek, Abdesselam Bouhasni, Miley Cyrus, and Liza Minnelli, Sex and the City 2 is a fine film that does deliver the fun of Sex and the City, if you love the show, and the first movie then you’ll love this, but cinematically it’s pretty spineless. 

Filled with ‘drama’, romance, comedy, strong women, glamour, and menopause, as a fan of the show and the characters, I still kind of loved it.