Review: Sex and the City: The Movie

With Sarah Jessica Parker playing the role of now household name Carrie Bradshaw, it was naturally expected that women of all shapes and kinds would come out in hordes to watch the movie adaptation of the hugely popular Sex and the City (SATC) series.


And oh! They did come out in numbers. Accompanied by their ever-accommodating guy friends, boyfriends, fiancés, and husbands.

So we have Carrie, sassy writer for a New York newspaper, and show fetishist, who is all set to give up her single status for one of matrimony to Big a.k.a. John Preston (Chris Noth), her companion of ten years, much to the delight of her clique. The clique consists of Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), a successful lawyer, who, while toiling at her work, grows distant with her husband, who meanwhile cheats upon her, and later confesses his adultery, much to her utter misery. There is also Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), the eternal sunshine girl, who is trying her best to conceive.


And oh of course! How can you forget Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), the predator who candidly confesses her love for all things male, and who takes her love for sushi to new, bare levels (pun intended).


Their lives are all thrown asunder when Big develops cold feet on the day of the wedding, and decides not to go along with the wedding, leaving Carrie devastated. The four friends decide to go along on the already paid-for honeymoon for Carrie and Big, to Mexico, where they try to collect themselves.


Carrie returns to her New York job, hiring an assistant, Louise (Jennifer Hudson of Dreamgirls fame) to manage her administration.


In between the generous doses of Manolo Blahniks, Jimmy Choos, Louis Vuittons, Chanels, Givenchys, Moschinos, Vera Wangs, Jean Paul Gaultiers, Balenciagas, Roberto Cavallis, Fensis, Marc Jacobs, Versaces, Guccis, and Christian Louboutins, a sensitive, witty story of four friends emerges, twirling everyone in its wake.


So while you have the four girls sipping Cosmopolitans and martinis and getting sloshed, you also have the cheeky conversations about that taboo three letter word, all the while wearing the most wow of clothes and footwear, much to best friend and my agony and barely-contained gritting-teeth envy.


A much watch for every woman worth her Dior, SATC is two hours and a few minutes of pure, unadulterated fashion heaven. Though I’m sure that the men may hold a contrary opinion.


I couldn't help but hear the occasional yawning / gentle snoring spells by the men folk who had gallantly shown up.


God bless these noble souls!


And to more silver-screen adaptations of SATC, a huge Amen from all the womenfolk...

Of missed calls and foul moods.

Thanks to the Service Provider that promises that its signature puppy will follow you everywhere (sounds like a damn stalker), I am on the threshold of a nervous breakdown.

Huh! What? You might ask.

I retort simply, hear me out.

It all started out a fortnight back when an innocuous-looking message landed on my mobile.

My ears perked up (akin to a certain pug).

A little rambling here: though a self-confessed dog-lover, I find that particular pug obnoxious. I mean what is so special about it that has all people(age / gender no bar) gushing and cooing over it. It’s just another mutt. Before people take up cudgels against me, let me hastily add that I have nothing against their breed as such; however, making them almost instant dog-icons is frankly, quite outside my range of comprehension.

Sorry for the outburst; but yeah, I definitely needed to let off steam.

Coming back to the message in question, it straightforwardly asked me to revert with my address details (mind you, it only said that I had to message back).

My mobile-thumb, ever up for some heavy-duty messaging, was instantly on the go, and before you could say Rumpelstiltskin (ok ok, Jack Robinson), my address details were on their way to the service provider’s triple number.

Well, that was that.

Except for what happened yesterday.

Imagine the scene: Sunday morning. Yours truly is all snug in her bed.

And then the phone had to shriek like a banshee at an unearthly hour.

One eye open, I groaned and reached out for the luminescent mobile.

Blinking hard, I saw that the call did not display the caller’s name or number, but simply, “unknown caller.”

Oh well. Thinking it to be an ISD call from one of my numerous friends who study / work abroad, I stifled a yawn, cleared my throat, and muttered, “Hullo.”

To my surprsie, it was one of my good friends calling, well within the confines of the country, and who was perfectly baffled when I asked her who she was.

Seemed like there was some problem with my one-year-old phone. I listened to what she had to tell me, and was quick to bid adieu when she was through. (Who doesn't love his / her sleep, tell me?)

With a couple of thoughts about what possibly could be wrong with my phone, I drifted off once again into a blissful slumber.

An hour later, my phone had taken on a life of its own; caller upon caller followed.
Parents, brother, best friend (who’s getting married next weekend incidentally:-)), other friends, all had taken it into their heads to outdo each other in greeting me first thing in the morning.

And the phone, you may ask.

Well, it didn’t display anyone’s number or name.

Now this was queer, and a slight sense of uneasiness crept into me.

A call to the customer care service(or make that a call which ran into several minutes, thanks to being put on hold like what seemed like an eternity), revealed that although I had submitted my details(read id, address proof, photograph) three years back when I got the number, certain rules made it mandatory for me to submit those details again. WTH.

My Sunday was definitely not looking very bright.

Trying to keep my temper in check, I listened to what he had to say, and then politely hung up.

Thanks to the weekend, the option was to wait for a day, and submit the blessed documents the next day(that being today, Monday).

Just as I was bringing myself to terms with the non-display-of-callers, I found, to my utter dismay today morning, that my messaging and outgoing calls were both barred.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaalp.

The last nail to the coffin: my friends, knowing that I can’t see who’s calling me, have taken it into their bright heads to give me tons of missed calls. Wait till I get my hands on their necks.

The aspirin is right on my table; head throbbing, I am just about to pop it with some water.

There goes another of them missed calls again.

Aaaaaargh.

I'm just hoping that the guy whom I gave my documents to submit does his job today; or somehere tonight, there is gonna be a murder.

Does this ring a bell...?

My phone rings incessantly, much to my irritation.

Now I don't mean that I don't like receiving phone calls.

I do, in fact, I call a fair number of people myself, and am unanimously called the fastest "message-sender" among my friends too, but when, a whole truckload of consultants who are hell-bent on making you appear for that "interview that could change your life completely," to sales people who are ingratiating at first, but when you respond to their many schemes, cell-phone plans, credit-card offerings, and all and sundry offers in the negative, take just one second to become gruff, sarcastic, or downright mean, I am so much better off without their calls, thank you.

Sample this:

My cell phone, which has till now been perched on my table quietly, decides to vibrate in full splendour, scaring the shit out of yours truly(as also startling some colleagues), all of whom have been been working diligently(till now that is).

Five rings later, casting an apologetic look (to the colleagues), an irritated me picks the blessed instrument up, walking over to the pantry.

Some bloke hollers my name. I hastily assure him that it was me, myself, and I, who had answered his call.

After asking a couple of questions, he superciliously announces that he has a cell scheme for me, that will miraculously halve my montly telecommunications bill.

I thank him for his generosity, and give a speech upon my fondness for my prepaid connection
Upon my polite declining of the offer, things take a turn for the worse, as he suddenly decides that he is an out-of-job CBI interrogator, taking upon himself the honor(?)/the privilege(??), to question me(a tad suspiciously), as to why I was turning down the fab / great / astounding offer(adding some more superlative adjectives for his scheme, which I don't care to mention).

Things become nastier, when I express a strong desire that he disconnect the line pronto, all the while shaking my shampoo-ed hair, and thinking of the work that lay before me, waiting to be completed.

The bloke on the other side becomes more and more aggressive, and I can just barely restrain myself from using some colorful language.

I snap at him and coldly ask him to disconnect the line.

He's still selling his scheme, when my patience runs out, I count 1-2-3, and hang up.

I take a deep breath, look around the pantry, practise a couple of composed expressions, and return to my workstation.

The unfinished work, which has been staring up at me, puts its accusing finger down, and I resume my work...

Peace was just not meant to be, because before 5 minutes had lapsed, my workstation table shuddered again...

Resigned to my fate, I whisper a "Hello" into the mouthpiece. An effervescent, female voice dramatically asked me if I was interested in a credit card by a reputed bank. Thankfully, she knew N-O when she heard it.

I hung up in a huff, and immersed myself in work, yet again.

The next one hour sawa string of phone calls in quick succession: a woman yelling at me for giving her blank calls(as if I have nothing better to do. Bah!), two job consultant who had not even bothered to go through my CV carefully, and wanted me to teach Linux and do Chartered Accountancy, respectively, a crank caller(who probably was getting some kicks in life by calling and breathing deeply from the other end of the phone, but not uttering a single syllable), and a sales person who had another scheme-buy two fire extinguishers, get the third free.

After I very earnestly told the last chap that I already had a fire extinguisher, and thus extinguished his call, I decided, this was it, and switched off the source of all my misery.

Two blissful hours passed, and then I started getting some niggling thoughts...

What if my parents were trying to get in touch with me?

What if my friends wanted to update me about the evening plans?

What if my brother was trying to call me, with glad tidings that the perfume I had set my eyes upon, had been bought by him, and when did I want to meet him?

A couple of other "what ifs" also crossed my mind, and then I decided that I should switch on the phone.

Another deep breath, and I switched it on.

Silence.

More silence.

But before I could flash my Cheshire cat grin, the phone vibrated yet again......

No prizes for guessing....

Another salesguy offering yet another credit card.

I disconnected,

and buried my head in my hands...