When news broke that the Sex and the City movie was a go, fans of the hit show broke into two camps: first, there were those who just couldn’t get enough of it, who lived off of, and vicariously through, Carrie Bradshaw and co.; then there was the group who thought they should just leave it where it was, that they’d been subjected to enough Carrie/Big together-apart-together again nonsense and that they shouldn’t mess with a good thing. So, naturally, now that the movie comes out, there are those who love it and those who hate it, depending on where they stood with the original show, and both for very good reasons.

I must admit, I was obsessed with the original half-hour Sunday night show. I watched it religiously, begged family members for the pink collector’s set when it came out a few years ago and eventually mastered the famous cosmopolitan (hint: only use real cranberry juice and fresh lime juice if you can). After the show ended, I went through withdrawal and would have done anything to reunite the fabulous quartet, but then I started really thinking about it. The show had ended. It was over. They had wrapped it up so neatly that there were no ambiguities, no what ifs, no questions. Each character had gotten her happily ever after in her own way, and I was content with the series the way it was, sans film adaptation. But then the potential dollar signs started adding up, and HBO did it.

So, now the question isn’t whether they should have or not, but whether they pulled it off without pissing us off. (And by us, I mean the cosmo-sipping, Manolo-coveting, sex-talking – or wannabe-sex-talking – fans.)
The short answer is yes, they did, and amazingly so. Though the plotlines seem tedious – how many Big/Carrie breakups can we stand? – and the fashion at times ridiculously unrealistic (especially with some of the gratuitous “fashion-porn” shots, as I like to call them), the movie succeeds in giving us that extra long dose of our favorite foursome without overdoing it or deviating too far from what most fans probably wanted to see. For a fan, it’s a great afternoon at the movies.

That being said, from an objective point of view – that is, from the point of view of someone not drinking the Sex and the City Kool-Aid, the movie is pretty mediocre. Men dragged by their girlfriends will cringe through it, and women who haven’t followed the show will get annoyed with the contrived characters and boring plotlines. But the saving grace is those little moments of pure Sex and the City gold sprinkled throughout the movie, placed just in the right spots to wake up the uninterested viewer from his or her stupor (and seeing as how the movie runs almost two and a half hours, it’s not difficult to see that happening), like Samantha’s gawking at her ridiculously hot neighbor or Charlotte’s prudish disapproval of the use of the word “sex” in front of her daughter, which both provide comic relief during the film.

But the movie’s real strength lies in its ability to make you care not so much about the women and their relationships with men, but about the women and their relationships with each other. We see the ending of the movie from the beginning, or at least from the introduction of each character’s romantic storyline – there are no surprises there, but the scenes between the four friends are the most moving and memorable (one between Miranda and Carrie almost brought me to tears). Though we hate to admit the cliché is true, it really is the friends that will rush across town in the middle of the night to share a pack of Oreos with you because you’re scared of the ghost in your apartment that really matter.

So, get together with some of those friends, make a round of cosmos, and head out to the theater. That the movie “gets it right” or not is immaterial; the purpose of a movie like Sex and the City is to entertain, to make you forget about your problems for a little bit and dazzle you with wit, delicious men and gorgeous shoes. It is by no means groundbreaking or surprising, but it sure is fun – and pretty. Did I mention the shoes?