By Andrew Bolt
The Herald Sun , June 11, 2008 12:00am
This film sequel of the television show about four single women in New York has been an instant smash in the US and Australia - last week eclipsing even the opening here of the latest Indiana Jones flick.
So you'd think the critics would be unanimous in their hosannas - but no. There's instead that old talk-past that actually helps to explain the secret of Sex and the City's success.
Here, for instance, is David Stratton of the ABC's At the Movies, giving the blokey view of the film women are click-clacketing to in a frantic staccato of stilettos.
"Witless . . . badly acted . . . very drab . . . if you haven't seen the television series, don't bother . . . endlessly long . . . truly dreadful . . . one (star out of five)."
Yet here, on the very same show, is Stratton's co-host, Margaret Pomeranz: "This movie has generated record excitement in just about every woman of my acquaintance . . . delivers on a lot of levels . . . I wallowed in every minute . . . I really loved it . . . four stars."
You could hear exactly this talk-past over at 3AW's breakfast show.
From Herald Sun critic Leigh Paatsch: "Below par . . . I cried, too -- when it got to the 100-minute mark. Two (stars)."
But from 3AW's entertainment reporter, Donna Demaio: "Absolute gem . . . I cried several times . . . magnificent shoes . . . you're talking about my friends, here . . . you will learn something about women . . . I'm giving it a 10."
Of course, there are male critics - gays in particular - who've loved a film where the stars include the fabulous frocks, from Versace to Chanel.
And there are female critics - feminists in particular - who've loathed a film that makes a woman's highest goal seem a husband and a wardrobe full of Manolo Blahniks.
Even so, SATC divides the sexes like few other movies, which is why the sold-out session I sidled into this week had me feeling as outnumbered as Custer.
And as outgunned.
You see, it's actually pointless subjecting the film to the conventional male criticisms of plot, pacing, camera angles and deep and meaningful resolutions - all that masculine stuff about problems, process and payoffs.
This is instead a women thing. About being, not doing. Chatting, not debating. Listening, not telling. And it's a giant hen's party, besides.
Check the stalls filled with glad-eyed female friends. Check the pre-sales - with more group bookings than any film before, other than Shrek the Third. And check the stout defence of a film by fans who can acknowledge every flaw - from its huge length of 142 minutes to its frankly unbelievable ending - yet couldn't care a snap.
After all, a woman sees every flaw in her girlfriends, too, but loves them no less, right?
So it is with SATC and small surprise, given it's less a film than a celebration of the friendships that women do so much better than men.
It's not just the friendship between SATC's four heroines and their fans that's being celebrated, of course, although there's that, too.
After all, it's four years since the series ended its six-year run, with Carrie, the hot-shot sex writer, finally in the arms of lover Mr Big, played by some spare timber.
All her best friends were left similarly paired back then in a happy-ever-after way - Miranda was married off to a hobbit called Steve, Charlotte to a Jewish billiard ball called Harry, and even sex devotee Samantha, the original good time had by all, consented to be the girlfriend of Smith, an actor as generic as the name.
But with the movie, we return to find the girls in a flutter and their men even blander and more hapless, if possible.
Indeed, the girls' lovers are mere ideas of men, on which Carrie and her friend play out their anxieties and dreams - just as the pre-show cinema ads tee off on a succession of witless males, including a vain gym instructor, a clueless boyfriend and a couple of suckers who thoroughly deserve to have their chips and Cherry Ripes stolen by far sassier women.
So let's start taking notes.
"Learn something about women" - lesson #1: Women are in love with love, rather than with an identifiable and individual male.
And if they do love us, it's despite, not due to, what we are.
Anyway, four years on, it's natural the TV show's fans want to catch up with Carrie and Co again. Women, you see, tend to be more loyal to friends than are men, and more likely to keep even the ones they made at school.
And so these fans are now calling in on the SATC girls to find that Carrie's having a frocker of a wedding; Charlotte's exiled to unhip Brooklyn, where women with children get banished; Miranda's had even less sex than (uh oh) her husband and Samantha is falling more in love with herself than her boyfriend.
"Learn something about women" - lesson #2: Women are fascinated by relationships more than anything else.
Big surprise: who else in the family remembers the anniversaries, writes the birthday cards, summons the relatives for Christmas, drops in on the nursing home, and arranges the cooking roster for friends in trouble?
Back in the movie, the latest Carrie-tastrophe has our heroine so flat that her three girlfriends swoop her off with them to an instant holiday in Mexico.
How they manage this at no notice when at least two have high-paying jobs is a mystery, but work in Carrie's world was always just a plot point to explain the cash for the frocks.
"Learn something about women" - lesson #3: Work doesn't define women the way it does men. Lovers do. Families do. Friends do. Jobs don't.
But if the girls' domestic arrangements have changed, their addictions to high-end shopping and luxury labels hasn't.
And so one marriage proposal is sealed with a vow to "build you a better closet" - a line that had the women at my screening oohing as if whispered the softest of sweet nothings.
"Learn something about women" - lesson #4: Not game to say, actually, having learned that much already. But, men, offer a woman a well-feathered nest and you're guaranteed much billing, and quite likely some cooing.
The odd thing, though, is that almost all the fashion in this film is donned by women dressing up for other women, and not for their men.
In fact, Carrie only finds redemptive happiness when she ditches the Viviene Westwood wedding dress for some no-label nothing that's less likely to alarm a man, a moral she underlines by reading out an improving sermon on looking beyond the labels of relationships to find happiness.
But, men, don't be fooled. Straight after that homily, she totters out of the movie in Gucci shoes and an absurd little white dress with accessorised giant hibiscus, gleaming gold.
Learn something about women - lesson #5: It's not about logic, or, as this meandering epic of a movie shows, about working methodically to a conclusion the way men insist. It's about just chatting, just being there, just showing you care. It's about sympathy, not solutions. Feeling, not philosophising.
But don't be fooled either by the fashion in this clothes rack of a film - this shameless parade of product-placed Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Fendi, Jimmy Choo, Christian Dior, Ralph Lauren, Versace, Valentino and Gucci.
In the end, the clothes are just the usual princess-trappings of any fairytale for girls, which is why the dresses seem to wear the women, and not the other Audrey Hepburn-way around.
The emotional heart of SATC is still the sisterhood - the friendship the four heroines feel not for their lovers but each other.
And it's a friendship on screen that's echoed and amplified by the friendships of all those women watching, making this a film better seen collectively than alone.
So how dare some men then complain the plot is too slow, Mr Big a wuss, the humping dog joke too stale, the girls too airheaded and Carrie's black assistant just a marketing sop?
Missing the point again, guys, which is why the girls are having a great time without you. They're just there for a goss and a cackle, with their friends in the film and their friends in the stalls.
So learn this last: This show was never about art, but heart. And once again, it's women who know that best.
Critics have been complaining of the length, of the lack of plot and structure. This is pointless, because, guys, it's not a movie, it's the seventh season of the TV series. The 2.5 hour length equals 5 episodes (a season normally comprised of 6 or 7 episodes) without the end credits in between. Each 30min actually has its own plot and theme and "ending" scenes.
