David R. Walker

Carrie and the Big Apple

It was inevitable that the hit HBO television series, Sex and the City, about the adventures of four young and hip New York women based on the book by Candace Bushnell, be turned into a slick and stylish big screen adaptation. The sensational series, which originally aired from 1998 to 2004, was a weekly dose of risqué 30-minute episodes consisting of the sexual and social tribulations of four single New York career girls, which become the benchmark for all that, was chic, stylish and witty.

Sarah Jessica Parker’s fame was secured when she brought to life the lead character of New York columnist, Carrie Bradshaw’s trials and musings on love, life and looking for the eternally elusive Mr. Right. Instead, she found herself with Mr. Big while her friends were also grappling with the feminine challenges of balancing successful careers, hot relationships and a fabulous social life, set in the ever-inspiring backdrop of New York’s affluent Manhattan, that densely populated and exclusive enclave of high-fashion, infidelity and just sheer opulence.

Sex, a basic human right, as essential as food and survival coupled with the City, the phenomenal urbanization of the planet’s economically active cool trendsetters, as symbolized by the deliciously incandescent and scrumptious Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. The series, intelligently written and punctuated with scandalous scenes of outrageous nudity, gorgeous clothes and designer living, was a sure-fire success and defined a generation of style. Secured in this witty and lavish tradition, the film version of Sex and the City is a fashionable fable of the four far from virginal forty-year old women, with the original actresses reprising their roles as Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, who not only take on New York City, but the Mexican Riviera, Malibu and Beverly Hills, as they all in turn battle with the challenges of managing relationships with men, impending marriages, maternity and maintaining a wardrobe from the essential Manolo Blahnik shoes to Prada purses and fabulous outfits by Dior, Vivienne Westwood and Gucci.

With Patricia Field, the costume designer of the equally spectacular The Devil Wears Prada, responsible for the outfits, Sex and the City is a slightly over-long, but nevertheless fashion-frenzied feast of style, femininity and refreshingly raunchy, air-brushed film version of the fabulous four, written and directed with strong literary and filmic references by Michael Patrick King, elevating it above the average barrage of chic-flicks, that have hatched from Hollywood in the past decade.

So, will men enjoy it? Yes, I think the quality of the film coupled with its sophisticated tales of urban relationships set in one of the world’s richest city, will certainly appeal to anyone with a mature sensibility. All I can hope for is a film version of the male equivalent, the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning series, Entourage, about a band of thespian brothers attempting to make it make big in Hollywood.

For the price of a movie ticket and a couple of hours, Sex and the City will indulgently transfer you to a world of sophistication, desire and elegance, that most people only aspire to and merely wish for, while whetting your appetite for luscious bodies and the slick designer clothes that cover them.

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