Film Review: Sex and the City 2 (2010)
The good news for viewers is that Sex and the City 2 is no worse than its predecessor; the bad news is that it is not one whit better. Released a mere two years after the commercially successful but critically derided first film, this sequel represents yet another exercise in franchise exhaustion—offering 146 minutes of what can only be described as cinematic purgatory for anyone who does not number themselves among the series' most devoted acolytes.
The narrative commences two years after the previous instalment's happily-ever-after, with the four heroines reuniting for the wedding of their gay friends Stanford and Anthony—a lavish Connecticut affair that serves as little more than an excuse for the producers to burn through their $95 million budget with ostentatious set pieces. From this launching point, we are treated to a litany of increasingly trivial "crises": Samantha (Kim Cattrall) bemoans age discrimination in boutiques; Charlotte (Kristin Davis) frets that her buxom nanny might seduce her husband; Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) abandons her career for family; and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) faces the grave indignity of a spouse who prefers black-and-white cinema to gala evenings.
When the screenplay—such as it is—finds itself utterly bereft of forward momentum, salvation arrives in the form of a preposterous plot device: a wealthy Arab sheikh (Art Malik) invites the quartet to Abu Dhabi for an all-expenses-paid luxury holiday. Ostensibly framed as a journey to the "new Middle East," this narrative detour allows the filmmakers to posture as enlightened, politically correct Arabophiles, even as they rely upon the most reductive cultural clichés. Once arrived in the Emirates, our protagonists must contend with Islamic customs that prove rather more conservative than Manhattan society—Samantha must forgo her rejuvenating drugs and public sexual displays, whilst Charlotte conceals her Jewish surname. The contrivances multiply when Carrie serendipitously encounters former flame Aidan (John Corbett), prompting the requisite musings on roads not taken.
What might have passed for pert social commentary in thirty-minute television episodes becomes, at feature length, an interminable slog. Writer-director Michael Patrick King, veteran of the original series, proves utterly unequal to the demands of cinematic storytelling. The characters—once celebrated as models of modern, emancipated womanhood—have devolved into insufferable, hypocritical caricatures. Carrie, the self-styled intellectual, is reduced to a Cinderella stereotype; the others fare no better. The humour, such as it is, barely rises above kindergarten level—if one views this in the cinema, one waits in vain for the sound of audience laughter.
Yet the film's gravest miscalculation lies not in its artistic failures but in its spectacular tone-deafness regarding the world beyond the screen. Released in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, Sex and the City 2 asks its audience to sympathise with characters distraught over their inability to afford a $22,000-per-night hotel suite. In an era when viewers were more likely to be rummaging through bins than booking holidays to oriental fairy-tale destinations, this display of unbridled opulence serves not as escapism but as an affront. Hollywood once understood that economic hardship demanded a different sort of fantasy—one need only look to the 1930s for examples of luxury deployed as genuine escapism. The makers of this franchise, alas, possess no such sophistication.
The first film, whilst hardly distinguished, at least maintained some connection to its television roots. This sequel abandons even that tenuous link, offering nothing but exotic locations in lieu of narrative invention. The genre has shifted from sharp social satire to generic romantic comedy; the wit has evaporated, leaving only bland, grating stereotypes in its place.
Rating: 2/10
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