There comes a point in the film version of Sex and the City where I just wanted to admit enough was enough. Set four years after the popular HBO series came to an end, this new year-long adventure of New York best friends Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) goes on for what feels like forever. At almost two-and-a-half hours, the movie moves like molasses, filled with so much pointless exposition and meandering montages signifying nothing I kind of wanted to pull my hair out and scream.

Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker in New Line Cinemas' Sex and the City

Don’t get me wrong, like the majority of my own best friends I adored the television series just as much as the next gal. While I didn’t worship at the feet of Carrie’s (admittedly fabulous) Manolo Blahnik’s, I certainly respected her and her gaggle’s ability to talk frankly about sex, men, food, labels, career and family (all not necessarily in that particular order) along with the best of them. At its finest, the show was a breezily energetic and intelligently scripted wonder brimming with bright ideas and a killer fashion sense, and while it was certainly all a bit of fairy tale its modern Cinderella taking charge and being proud of who she was central conceit was one I could get behind without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Yet, as much as I wish I could say the same about the film the honest to goodness truth is that it just isn’t possible. Writer and director Michael Patrick King (responsible for some of the series’ best episodes) drops the ball big-time, so eager to throw everything including the kitchen sink into the picture he busts the pipes and drowns us all in watery Cosmo-colored excess. Plot points aren’t just spelled out they’re lit in bright neon colors that blink off and on like annoying jewel-encrusted fireflies buzzing a romantic late night picnic. Worse, if you don’t catch what’s going on the first time he makes sure to have the ladies repeat themselves two or three more just for good measure, and after about the fifth or sixth time this happens I just about wanted to scream in bleary-eyed exasperation.

Making it so much more frustrating is the fact there is lots (and I mean tons) of absolutely frickin’ fantastic material just bursting inside this cinematic Sex and the City that just about knocked my own BCBG pumps clean off my feet. Both Nixon and Cattrall are downright amazing (the latter stealing the entire picture every time she opens her mouth), while Davis has a one-word moment at about the hour mark that just about brought the audience to their feet.

Topping it off, Parker delivers a performance surprisingly so devoid of vanity that at one point she looked every bit as pummeled, downtrodden and consumed by some of life’s most beguiling mysteries as the character she ably portrayed. Sure she wears all the fabulous gowns as nicely as ever, but it is the intensity the actress brings to the character that’s the major revelation. This is as good as Parker has ever been and it’s almost as if taking Carrie from the small screen to the big has invigorated her to the point of rejuvenation. In sort, she’s spectacular, making the film’s ultimate disappointing failure all the more difficult to endure.

I really don’t know what else to say. While I understand wanting to give each of these characters their due, the simple fact is this movie isn’t the second coming of War and Peace. King could have easily whittled the running time down a good half an hour and not lost an ounce of the sexually stimulating drama he wanted to construct. Some of the subplots just go nowhere, and while it’s nice to see recent Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson join the cast as Carrie’s new personal assistant none of her scenes add anything to the proceeding making her introduction somewhat pointless.

The biggest mystery is what happened to New York itself. In the show, the city is the fifth character, the place a living breathing entity every bit as important to this quartet’s adventures as the Louis Vuitton handbags resting on their shoulders. Unfortunately, the setting here could be any metropolitan burg anywhere in the United States, the Big Apple nothing more than a series of neighborhoods and landmarks the women occasional mention just without giving them the emotional import they probably deserve. 

Sure I wasn’t the program’s biggest fan, but I did like it to the point I wanted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. I wanted it to be good just as much as the next gal, and with so much richly satisfying greatness inside of it that does work part of me just wants to give the gosh darn thing a break and call it a day. The problem is the countless flaws and mistakes also infuriatingly residing within just don’t give me the opportunity, Sex and the City proof positive that sometimes fairy tales just don’t end, they get thrown out into the recycling bin like last year’s worn-out fashions.

Film Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4) 

Additional Links:

-  Sex and the City Theatrical Trailer