'Sex and the City' movie should have a sign that reads for women only

Sex and the City ««
R, 145m. 2008

Cast & Credits: Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie Bradshaw), Kim Cattrall (Samantha Jones), Kristin Davis (Charlotte York), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda Hobbes), Chris Noth (Mr. Big), Candice Bergen (Enid Frick), Jennifer Hudson (Louise), Jason Louis (Jerry ‘Smith’ Jerrod), David Eigenberg (Steve Brady), Evan Handler (Harry Goldenblatt). Written and directed by Michael Patrick King based on characters created by Candace Bushnell.

Near the end of Sex and the City is a scene where Sarah Jessica Parker’s off and on boyfriend of ten years named Mr. Big (Chris Noth) tells her the reason their wedding early on in the film didn’t go as planned is because there was “no romance” to it. It was a case of one person asking if they should get married and the other without thinking it, saying yes.

I can’t tell you how happy I was to know that somewhere in New York was a gentleman like “Mr. Big” who believed in the old married tradition that when it comes proposing to the woman he loves, he should get down on one knee and ask her to marry him. Even if instead of being a wedding ring, it was an $800 pair of Parker's blue Manolo pumps he proposed to her with.

Therein lies the problem with Sex and the City, the movie. For more than close to 150 minutes, it’s all sex, all about sex, mixed in with a heavy touch of expensive high heels, and absolutely zero to little romance.

The film should come with a warning sign posted above the title that says “For Women Only.” This is a “chick flick” plain and simple. It’s only for those die-hard female fans and judging from the amount of entertainment news coverage this movie is getting, apparently there are many, who know each and every little detail about the four characters played by Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, and Kristin Davis.

I have no doubt female fans enthusiastically embraced that double-sized issue of Entertainment Weekly that came out a week before the film’s big screen premiere. The issue covered everything you ever wanted to know about the show from fashion to a rundown of every episode, and where the HBO series last left off when it aired from 1998-2004. I didn’t read the issue. I skipped over to the reviews. Though I must confess, I did like the cover.

Sitting there inside the dark theater upfront and being afraid to even look behind me to see if there were any brave males sitting among the audience, I could tell from the amount of laughs and various comments from women that they knew everything about these characters. When Parker’s relationship columnist Carrie Bradshaw reacts disapprovingly at the huge lack of closet space she will have for all her clothes and hundreds of high heels in her new Manhattan apartment she and “Mr. Big” will move into, I overheard a few women in the audience utter the phrase, “the closet.”

If any guys out there do like the show and embrace the film, my guess is they are not straight and have a love for wearing high heels. And those guys who are in the audience full of women, I would predict they are there because one, their girlfriends or wives dragged them to see it. Or two, the idiot like myself decided to write a review for the school newspaper because I stupidly felt it would be more timely to put in the upcoming issue than say Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Were it not for that decision, I would have skipped Sex and the City-The Movie and wouldn’t have felt like I was missing something. I had no problem with a mother’s baby near me who cried often throughout the film. In fact, if there is one movie I can honestly say I would not have had a problem with someone’s cellphone going off, it’s this one. God help any man in the audience though, who dares do that during this picture. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned you know.

I was not the least bit interested in any of these female characters on screen or their love lives, or to be more precise, sex lives. That’s what Sex and the City, the film and television show is really about despite Parker’s character claiming in the beginning the two main reasons women move to New York is to find “love and labels.”

For anyone even remotely curious about Parker’s three friends, there is work-a-holic lawyer, Miranda Hobbs, (Nixon) who during sex with her husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), pays more attention to how long it takes to climax as opposed to just allowing it to happen on its own. Charlotte York (Davis) makes it clear she is the happiest of the group; always with a smile on her face and it didn’t take me long to figure out why. She and her husband, Harry (Evan Handler), have sex three to four times a week.

I wasn’t surprised to learn the most colorful of the group was Samantha Jones (Cattrall) who when she can’t get a chance to screw her live-in boyfriend/actor, Jerrod (Jason Louis), spends time downing glasses of champagne in a hot tub watching a lean muscle bound hunk hump his wife and at one point engage in a threesome. She even has a horny female dog named “Baby” that thinks just like her when it comes to needing sex (the dog is always seen humping something). When she isn’t standing out from the rest of crowd in her bright red or yellow outfits, Samantha makes her presence known in other ways like cussing out loud during an auction when someone richer than she outbids her and saying the word “sex” in front of Davis’ young adopted daughter.

I have to say though from a man’s standpoint (and I am well aware this will cause me to lose any brownie points with any potential women interested in meeting me, if any), the character I most identified with in Sex and the City is Noth’s Mr. Big when it comes to romance and weddings. He has the same opinion about having a fancy wedding as I do. Early on, he tells Parker he’d be just as happy marrying her at City Hall.

I agree. When it comes to lavish, expensive weddings and having to get all dressed up to impress the guests, I’d just as well marry the one I love at City Hall or in Las Vegas where a group of Elvis impersonators are the guests and one of them is best man, and then have a small reception with a group of close friends.

I don’t mind sitting down with someone to see a romantic film. I am not ashamed to say I got a little emotional watching Titanic (1997) and no, it wasn't when Kate Winslet finds out boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio freezes to death in the cold Atlantic waters as they wait for rescue.

When it comes to the subject of sex, Sex and the City-The Movie, is just about a group of four desperate sexually active women whose only real interest when it comes to men is getting laid, whether they're married or single.

Perhaps romance really is dead.

©6/3/08