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Thursday 4 December 2008

Perfect package

Sex and the City
15, Nationwide 

I do know that not everyone gets Sex and the City. Bubbles, for example, does not get Sex and the City. ‘I don’t know what you see in this crap,’ he would say, whenever I watched it on television, and before going off to do something pointedly manly in his bowl, like scratch his bits with undisguised gusto. (Seriously, you try living with Bubbles.) But if you do get Sex and the City — note how I use ‘get’, rather than ‘like’, implying that it only appeals to smart, special people, such as myself — you will so love this movie. I totally loved it. OK, maybe it is, at 145 minutes, just five episodes glued back to back, and maybe bigger isn’t better — there is just more of it — but I laughed, I cried (twice; properly) and, when Carrie turned up for dinner in a corsage the size of a serving platter, I did not wonder why nobody said, ‘Jesus, Carrie, what on earth do you think you are wearing? Take it off, woman. Take it off.’ To wonder would, of course, mean you just don’t get it at all.

It’s been four years since the TV series finished and since we last saw the girls and you know what? I’ve missed them. I’ve missed Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and even Charlotte (Kirstin Davis), the rather dull preppy one who is never given much to do but does have great hair. (‘I’ll give you that, she does have great hair,’ even Bubbles will concede.) I am still trying to work out why I actually care. Do I identify with them? Nope. Do I wish they were my girlfriends? Certainly not. Have I ever confused sex with shoes? Only once, in Clarkes, and it was so embarrassing I swore never, ever again. It’s just this marvellous package, one which is not just fun, but also sells its menfolk deliciously short — it is such a hoot, seeing women objectifying men — embraces real drama along with all the fashion hoo-ha and has, at its heart, four women who are such busy professionals they only have time to meet for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, six trips round Bloomingdales, tea, a detoxifying body wrap, cocktails, Botox, four opening parties, dinner and a nightcap. Sometimes, Miranda and elevenses can be a close-run thing, but then she is an ‘exhausted working mother’, too. Sex and the City is the sort of wonderful wallow that you can take as seriously as you so fancy. This may be its beauty.

More articles from: Deborah Ross | this section

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