Why is it, do you think, that this movie pushes the right buttons for so many women and reduces us to giggling 14 year-olds on our way to the cinema?
Well, I can't speak for you, but for me it's not only about the fact that when I used to watch it on tv I was - mostly - young and unencumbered by children (oh, the nostalgia). Of course, it's nice to look back on those days where I bothered to check my reflection before I left the house, when my life was ordered, controlled and a little more - ok, a lot more - glamorous, and SATC on tv is a reminder of those times, but really, would I go back there?
No. Not for a heartbeat.
So why is it that I have fallen hook line and sinker for the reincarnation of the series on the big screen?
Two words.
Wish. Fulfillment.
It's not that I want those characters' ridiculous lives, you understand. I'm very happy with my own ridiculous life, thankyou. It's more that those ladies - Charlotte/Kristin Davis excluded, perhaps, although I'm not certain because I'm not yet sad enough to google the actresses ages - are all over 40, and yet they look fabulous. They act fabulous. They wear fabulous clothes. They have a fabulous time. When they screw up, they screw up fabulously. And whilst I know SATC is just a story, not real life, and never could be, it's just so - forgive me - fucking fabulous to see a movie where age is not a barrier to any of those things happening, and in fact where women over 40 - rather than being expected to fade gracefully into the background as seems so often the case in the media *- are the centre of the action.
And you know what? I really believe - the actresses' vanity permitting - that we may still be watching them in 10 years time, because there will still be mileage in this then. And that - to me, right now, having not seen this movie and having no idea if it's even any good or not - would be just... fabulous.
(* Click here to be taken to a piece I wrote on 40+ media-invisibility for Powder Room Graffiti last year...)
