The Long Overdue Sex and The City Review

I rushed out with the BFF to see Sex and The City the day after it opened and left the theatre determined to post a review that night.

Two weeks later and here it is. The reason for the delay? I felt obligated to take on every published review of the movie in order to re-affirm just how wrong they all are.

The task felt overwhelming and then irrelevant. Yes, Anthony Lane's New Yorker review was misogynistic and the accompanying caricature of the four girls was spiteful (it depicts Samantha, who is maybe a size 4, as an ogre). And Rick Groen's and Joanne Schneller's reviews in The Globe and Mail were baffling in their fervent distaste for the film. Both reviewers claim to be fans of the show and yet they both accuse the film of being a "disappointment."

The most popular accusation levied against the SATC film is that it presents Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha as cliches. Um, maybe that's because the women are so entrenched in our popular psyche that they are iconic figures, known intimately by millions and yet understood to stand in as symbols of feminine experience.

It isn't the film's responsibility to reveal the finer quirks and histories of the four women: we already know them. In the same way I don't need my girlfriend to contextualize when she says, "He made another excuse why he doesn't want kids" I don't need the movie to reveal what it is about Mr. Big that keeps Carrie coming back for more.

Ultimately, my movie-watching experience should outweigh the negative impact of these reviews. I have now spoken to eight different women, ranging in age from 28 to 62, who have seen the film and every one of them absolutely adored it. We laughed, we blew our snotty noses into popcorn-greased napkins, and we all felt a quiet sadness when it came to an end.