Sex and the city (15) Star rating: *** Dir: Michael Patrick King With: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon Moments before the preview screening of Sex and the City began, a film company rep popped up to implore journalists not to give away any of the plot goodies. The cheek of it - asking the noble profession that spawned Defoe, Dickens, Woodward and Bernstein to ignore the movie-going public's right to know how it turns out for Carrie and co.
Well, Prada knickers to that (warning: if you're allergic to product namedropping, look away from this review now). It is therefore without fear or favour that I reveal the following: one blonde gets a dog, another peroxide popsy appears in public without mascara - the international female distress signal - a redhead blows her carrot top and the brunette gives up jogging for a while.
None of those snippets of information will mean a thing to anyone who wasn't a fan of the television show. Much like this movie, in fact. Dedicated followers of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte will enjoy Michael Patrick King's big screen adventure. Those who missed the series (welcome back from the North Pole) or couldn't give a hoot will wonder why they should pay cinema prices to watch an upmarket soap opera, Coronation Street dressed by Lacroix.
In its day, the Sex and the City series, inspired by the columns of Candace Bushnell, was smart television. Though it tackled tough subjects such as cancer and unwanted pregnancy, it was always at heart a fairytale of New York where reality could knock on the window but was never allowed to come inside and kick off its shoes.
It comes as something of a surprise, then, that when the movie opens Samantha the PR is working with refugees in Gaza, lawyer Miranda has set up shop in Guantanamo, Park Avenue princess Charlotte is on welfare and stiletto queen Carrie is a poster girl for Birkenstock.
Yeah, right. Michael Patrick King, who writes as well as directs, keeps three of his heroines well within their Wasp comfort zone of Manhattan and sends one to ab fab LA. He has, however, wisely moved the story on four years.
The shift is signalled when the familiar theme tune strikes up only to be replaced by a rap-based track. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is seen striding down the street, looking on in a motherly way as a band of twentysomething lookalikes passes by. The original four are past 40 and all grown up now, with grown up problems to match - among them, how to keep a relationship alive, staying afloat financially, and what to wear at Halloween.
The latter is one of the many headaches of working mum Miranda (Cynthia Nixon). "These are the two choices for women - witch or sexy kitten?" she wails. It's one of several moments when King's script strikes the right note between silly, sassy and spot on. SATC: The Movie, like its television counterpart, wears its feminism like Chanel No 5. While a dab here and there is desirable, the audience doesn't want to be drenched in the stuff.
A few choice lines aside, the script is disappointingly short on wit. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) gets the best of what's going, but more often than not she's on the wrong side of the class-crass divide. Caught in a bidding war at an auction and keen to show how much she wants the piece, she shrieks: "Fifty ******* thousand!"
There's also a toilet scene that wouldn't be out of place in a frat boy movie. Hardly Dorothy Parker, m'dears.
The amount of shrieking in the film is beaten only by the level of product placement. Diane von Furstenberg, Caroline Herrera, Dior, Oscar de la Renta, Dior, Manolo Blahnik, even Pret a Manger gets a flash to camera. This hymn to conspicuous consumption was fine when the West worshipped at the altar of easy money and never-never financing. In the era of the credit crunch, splashing thousands on a bag looks obscene - worse, unfashionable.
It would be easy to knock SATC for being about as deep as a puddle, predictable, and quick to stereotype. At two and a half hours it is less a film than an end-of- season television special. By the time the going gets good dramatically you are more than ready to go home. And yet, in the manner of ponderous Carrie as she sat at her Mac, you can't help but wonder whether criticising King's effort for being lightweight isn't missing the point in spectacular fashion.
SATC is hardly the first film to pander to its public. For fans, this will be a catch-up with old pals. So they're not as funny as you remember, and they've grown a little thick around the plot line; the affection remains. The film's true home is not the movie theatre but the DVD market, where it will live on as the centrepiece of many a girly night in, should that be your (designer) bag. As for the big question to which some are dying to know the answer ... oh dear, I seem to have run out of spa ...
