One thing that made the Sex and the City 2 reviews so enjoyable to read was that the movie forced film critics to find in themselves a fashion critic too. New York’s David Edelstein called the movie “an epic eyesore,” while Roger Ebert wrote, “I don’t know a whole lot about fashion, but I know something about taste, and these women spend much of the movie dressed in tacky, vulgar clothing.” While a lot of fashion writers in the U.S. avoided critiquing the clothes in the film, the British fashion press can’t resist tossing their two cents into their SATC2 coverage.
Hilary Alexander wrote a short piece for the Telegraph about the red-carpet fashion at last night’s London premiere. She seemed pleased enough with Sarah Jessica Parker’s McQueen dress and Philip Treacy hat, but the kicker at the end of her story?
The red carpet, in fact, looked to be much more fun than the film itself which is long on trite tedium and short on plot, style and wit.
Even British Vogue wasn’t entirely positive.
Sex and the City fans can ignore the adverse reviews the film has received on both sides of the Atlantic, safe in the knowledge that a charge of “style over substance” is not something that will impact your enjoyment of the franchise. It’s a two and a half hour fashion show, with plenty to make you cringe slightly, but if you go expecting fashion and fun — rather than a feminist thesis — you won’t be disappointed.
Earlier this week, Hadley Freeman panned the movie on multiple levels in a lengthy piece in the Daily Mail. She wrote, “We are left with Carrie squealing about Dior and Samantha wearing clothes that she seems to have stolen from Joan Collins and the whole thing adds up to Absolutely Fabulous without the fun.” We didn’t have such trouble watching the movie. For those two hours and 23 minutes we found the return to the story of the Fab Four pleasant enough. Afterward, we couldn’t believe some of what we had just seen, but what bothered us most about the clothes is that no one ever dressed down; Carrie even wore an evening gown just to watch movies at home with Big. So it’s not quite true that they don’t need any more clothes — they are in dire need of slippers. And sweatpants.
