Disappointed, thy name is me.
So I'm a huge Sex & the City fan, and I've been preparing for the film release today in the way only a true fan would: I watched all my favorite scenes over again to get me in the mood. I got my ticket 20 minutes early and sat in the seat, excited to see something I've been waiting for for years now. I even wore my pretty summer dress and cute shoes just for fun. I watched the movie and then...
To take a page from Sam, I totally lost my hard-on.
> Short summary of the movie.
> VERY detailed summary.
> Review... I recommend reading at least one summary before reading the review or you'll be lost.
The Short Summary
Carrie and Big decide to get married after buying an apartment together. She's researching old love letters written by powerful men for her latest book on love itself, rather than the pursuit of it. The wedding starts out small and low key, but soon grows insane and Big starts to panic. At the last minute just before the wedding begins, Big freaks out and calls Carrie from his car and tells her he can't go through with it. Right after the call, he realizes that he's being an idiot and decides to go back, but it's too late- Carrie is heartbroken and won't let him explain.
Charlotte finds out she's pregnant. Her and Harry already have a little Mandarin daughter named Lily that they adopted. But they're still ecstatic. She goes into labor while yelling at Big when she sees him at a restaurant. He brings her to the hospital and stays the whole time. She has a daughter named Rose.
Miranda and Steve are having issues. They haven't had sex in 6 months and when they finally do, Miranda just says that she wants to 'get it over with'. Steve cheats on her but is devestated and ashamed and tells her so. She leaves him. They make up later and Miranda forgives him.
Sam and Smith are living in LA where he's a big tv star, but Sam misses NYC and is tired of her life revolving so much around Smith. She breaks up with him and moves back to NY. She wants life to selfishly be all about her once again.
As Carrie leaves the hospital visiting Charlotte, Harry follows her out and tells her that Big mentioned that he'd been writing to her for months, hoping she'd call him. Carrie notes that she's never gotten any mail from him. She then remembers telling her assistant to delete all e-mail from him automatically. She figures out that her assistant didn't delete them but, instead, placed them in a special folder. Carrie finds them and reads each one with the subject "Love letter" in which he'd copied a different love letter from the book Carrie was reading in the beginning of the movie. There are tons of them. The final mail is one from Big himself that says simply, "I love you forever. Please forgive me."
She later finds him in their apartment holding a pair of her shoes. She runs to him and they kiss, and Big proposes to her properly and places the shoe on her foot instead of a ring. They get married in a simple ceremony at a courthouse while the girls wait outside. Miranda and Steve also make up and the last scene is at Sam's 50th birthday party at a restaurant where Carrie voice-overs about all the 20-something women out there who are just starting out in the city looking for love. The camera pans over all the women in the restaurant and going into the restaurant. The end.
The Very Detailed Summary
The movie starts out with Carrie and Big, happy as ever. It picks up about 4 years after the series finale. Carrie and Big are still in love and everyone's relationship seems to be good. They're in bed one night reading and he asks her what she's reading and she shows him it's a collection of these long and involved love letters from powerful men. She's researching her new book all about what love really is, rather than the pursuit of it (she's written 3 books at this point). Carrie asks him if he's ever written a love letter to her and he tells her that it isn't his style (or something. I'm hazy on what he said to her here).
Charlotte and Harry have their daughter, Lily, who's fucking adorable but I honestly would rather of her been in the movie less. They never had private girl-time together because the kid was always around. You'd think Charlotte could afford to get a babysitter, at least for the bachelorette night they had together, but no. So everything was PG.
Charlotte and Harry are still very happy together, but we don't see that much of them.
Sam and Smith are living in LA where Smith has become a George Clooney-esque tv doctor on a hit show. Sam isn't happy there and feels her life has become more about Smith and managing his career than about her.
Miranda and Steve are still in Brooklyn but they both seem unhappy. Miranda is working a lot and Steve is trying to get closer to her and she keeps pushing him away. Can't blame her... I mean she's tired and there's a lot to deal with with their son and work and her mother-in-law. The sex is sort of gone from the marriage, no matter how hard Steve tries to connect with her. They finally start to have sex at one point, and Steve tells her not to come yet and to get on top of him. She blurts out, 'let's just get it over with.'
Carrie and Big decide to move in together and they find this amazing apartment. It's gorgeous and huge. She doesn't think they can afford it but Big tells her, "I've got it." The only problem Carrie sees is that the closet is tiny. So Big tells her he can have that fixed.
The girls get together for an auction a woman is having. The woman's rich boyfriend broke up with her after 10 years, and literally locked her out of the apartment out of the blue. So she was selling all of the jewelry he'd ever given her at this auction. Sam is excited about the auction because there's a ring that she wants really bad. She wants to buy it for herself as a way to reward herself for working so hard. She goes up to 50 thousand dollars for the ring, but there's another woman who's bidding on behalf of another buyer. She goes up to 60K and Sam promised she wouldn't go above 50. She doesn't get the ring and is very disappointed.
Later, the girls have lunch and talk about how horrible it had to be to have the relationship end the way it did for the poor woman who sold her jewelry. The woman literally had nowhere to live because the guy owned everything and had bought everything for her. This makes Carrie worry about selling her apartment and letting Big handle everything.
So one night they're in their kitchen and she brings up the fact that she worries that, as much as she loves him, he sort of controls everything. It's not really 'their' apartment because he signed the contract and he owns it. So Big asks her nonchalantly if she wants to get married. She's a bit stunned and says she's not sure. It depends on if that's what he wants. He sweetly says he'd love to be married to her. There was no ring or anything, and it was all a big business-like, but they decide to get married.
Back in LA, Smith walks over to Sam with this huge hard-on and she looks excited. Then we see that it's just a box Smith has in his pants. He takes it out and tells her it's an anniversary gift; it was 5 years ago to the day that he met her. She opens it and it's the ring from the auction. HE was the one the auction woman was bidding for. She's excited and loves it at first, but then at lunch with the girls back in NY, tells them she was actually mad about it. She wanted to buy the ring for herself. Everything in her life was about Smith... she was managing him, he was her biggest client, they were living together, etc. She wanted to go back to the days where she did everything for herself and everything was about her. She's also trying not to cheat on Smith with this hot guy who lives next to her.
Meanwhile, Carrie tells the girls about being engaged and everyone is excited. She wants a small wedding and buys this 'label-less' business-style dress she found in a thrift shop. She has 75 people on her list for guests to the wedding. Then Vogue calls and asks her to pose in a pictorial wearing these gorgeous, designer wedding gowns. She reluctantly says yes and does the pictorial. One of the designers sends her the dress she posed in as a gift... and that's the beginning of the end.
She decides to wear that dress for the wedding. Then the small wedding turns into a huge affair. 75 guests turns into 200 from her side alone. Big asks her why everything changed and she says that the dress was so amazing that it made her change her mind about keeping it small. She decides to get married in the NYC Library. Meanwhile, she doesn't really let Big in on any of these decisions. He starts to get a bit freaked out because everything and everyone around him keeps reminding him that marriage changes everything and he's already failed at it twice. He loves Carrie so much but doesn't want to lose her because 'things change.' He loves her, though, and continues with the wedding plans.
Steve tells Miranda that he cheated on her. He's almost more devastated than Miranda is. He loves her so much and he needed to tell her because it was killing him to lie to her. She's understandably heartbroken and leaves. She moves out and gets a new apartment of her own. She refuses to take Steve back no matter how much he apologizes. Steve is devastated and depressed. He apologizes to her every time he sees her.
It's the night before the wedding and they're having a big dinner for Carrie and Big. Big is trying not to freak out but he keeps getting all of these reminders that he's been married twice before and that marriage always ends badly. Then, right as he's sort of on the breaking point, Steve shows up at the party and talks to Miranda outside. He apologizes again and tells her he loves her. She tells him that she changed her whole life for him and that he broke her... he broke them. As she goes back into the party, Big stops her and asks if she's okay. In a fit of anger, she tells him he's insane to marry Carrie and to get married again and that it will surely end in disaster.
Later that night at Carrie's apartment they're having a girl's night (although Charlotte brought her daughter which was so stupid). Big calls Carrie and tells her he's freaking out a little. She talks him down and tells him it's just them... him and her. They love each other and if he can't think of anything to say for his vows, to just say that he’ll love her forever and that will be enough. He seems a bit more relaxed after that.
The next day everyone's going off to the wedding and Carrie is all dressed (sorry, but she looks horrible!!). Big is sitting out in front of the Library, having a panic attack. He keeps trying to call Carrie because he needs to hear her voice to calm him down. But Charlotte's daughter Lily took Carrie's phone and hid it. He's freaking out until he sees Carrie's limo pull in front of the library. She's getting out with all the girls. Big tells himself, "c'mon, baby, turn around and see me. Look at me." He needs to see her face and be reassured that it's just him and her, despite all the insanity. But she doesn't see him and she has her veil on. He panics and tells the driver to go.
Carrie finds out that Big isn't at the Library and calls him using Sam's cell phone. He tells her he just doesn't think he can go through with it. Carrie drops the phone, devastated. She freaks out and tells the girls to get her out of there. They get in the limo and begin to drive away.
Big, meanwhile, halfway down the block realizes how stupid he's being and tells the driver to turn around. They end up coming right to Carrie's limo and they see each other and both get out. Carrie, though, is enraged and heartbroken and won't listen to him. She hits him over and over with her bouquet and just keeps slapping him asking, "how could you do this?!!! I'm humiliated! How could you?!" Charlotte finally grabs her and gets her back into the car while Big is completely shaken. Charlotte looks back at Big with complete disgust. Big just stands there shocked and teary-eyed, realizing he's lost her.
Carrie is completely devastated. She refuses to hear any phone messages or email or anything from Big. She wants him completely out of her life. She had secretly booked a Mexican vacation for them at a 5-star hotel in Mexico and she couldn't get out of it, so the girls all decide to take her there themselves. Carrie is completely depressed and sleeps for days. She finally snaps out of it but wonders if she'll ever laugh again. The girls tell her she will when something truly funny forces her to.
Meanwhile, Charlotte is refusing to eat or drink any food, fearing Montezuma's revenge. At one point, though, she's taking a shower and is relaxed and doesn't realize she's drinking the water from the shower. On her way back to the bungalow, it hits her hard. She passes by the girls and tries to get into the room but it's locked because the housekeepers are cleaning. She shits her pants right there, making all the girls laugh until they cry. Carrie finally laughs, seeing as how it's the funniest thing she's ever seen.
They go back home and Carrie dyes her hair dark brown cause she needs a change. She hires an assistant to help her move back into her old apartment. The assistant, Louise, tells her she has tons of messages from Big but Carrie tells her to delete all of them and to, in fact, have any messages from him automatically removed.
There's a bit of a time-passing montage and Sam buys this little girl dog who she sees on the street humping everything she sees. The seller says that she's fixed but still can't get over the urge to fuck everything she sees. Sam loves her for it and buys her. We see Charlotte getting much bigger and Miranda still not forgiving Steve.
Miranda is lonely on New Year's Eve and calls Carrie, who goes over. Louise has left for home for the holiday and so she's also alone. They spend New Year's Eve together in Miranda's apartment.
A little more passage of time and it's now Valentine's day. Miranda and Carrie decide to go out to eat together. In a sad moment, Carrie confesses that it was her fault Big freaked out. She didn't blame herself for him leaving but she really pushed too hard and she heard it in his voice the night before the wedding when he called. She should have known. Miranda finally confesses to what she told Big that night about being crazy to marry Carrie. Carrie is completely shocked and hurt by this and yells in the middle of the restaurant. She can't believe her best friend would keep a secret like that from her, knowing that she's been blaming herself for all those months. She tells Miranda coldly that she's an idiot for not forgiving Steve. She walks out of the restaurant. Despite Miranda pleading for Carrie to forgive her, Carrie doesn't speak to her for a while.
Meanwhile, Charlotte finds out she's pregnant. She's shocked but insanely happy. She's a regular jogger and gets scared that something bad is going to happen to the baby. She feels like everything in her life is almost too good in comparison to how bad it's been for everyone else and that something bad must be around the corner. She feels guilty for being happy while her friends are all suffering. So she's scared to death she'll lose the baby. But after talking to Carrie, she stops worrying so much and begins light jogging again.
In LA, Sam is trying not to cheat on Smith with their hot, sex-crazed neighbor, and Smith is working a lot. Sam decides to cover herself with sushi and lay on a table naked for Valentine's Day. She waits for Smith to come home but he calls and lets her know that he's stuck at the studio and will be home as soon as he can. She has a hissy fit when he gets home and throws the sushi at him. He doesn’t get to give her the big, heart-shaped box of chocolates he’d gotten her.
Back in NY, Miranda waits outside Carrie's apartment in a cab so that she has to speak to her. They finally talk and Carrie tells her how hurt she was that she didn't tell her right away about what she said to Big. She was blaming herself for months and Miranda knew it and let her. Miranda apologizes again and they make up.
Meanwhile, Louise and her ex-boyfriend get back together and get engaged. Louise tells Carrie she's moving back to St. Louis to be with him. She gives Carrie her "love' keychain that she always kept with her because she had found her love and didn't need it anymore. She wanted Carrie to have it until she found hers as well.
Miranda decides to give Steve another chance and they go to therapy. Steve is scared that she'll never forgive him and she's scared she'll never trust him. The therapist suggests that they start over fresh, leaving everything that happened in the past. They are told to separate for 2 weeks and to not see each other. Then agree to meet somewhere together if they decide to forgive one another and start over. If either doesn't show up, then they'll know that they just can't move on.
Miranda isn't sure, right up to the very day they're supposed to meet on the Brooklyn bridge, but then she sees that she has a milk mustache in the mirror, which goes back to the beginning of the movie where he wipes one from her mouth for her in a sweet moment. She knows right then that she forgives him and then meets him on the bridge. They kiss and hold hands together.
Charlotte goes to lunch at a nice restaurant a week before she's due and she sees Big at a table not far away. She freaks out and decides to leave but she's so big that it's hard not to notice her, which Big does. He runs out after her. She gets so mad, telling him that she was the one who always defended him all those years and how she curses the day he was ever born. Then her water breaks right there. So Big takes her to the hospital.
In the next scene, Carrie arrives at the hospital to see Charlotte's new daughter, Rose. Charlotte tells her that Big was the one who brought her to the hospital but Carrie doesn't want to talk about it because it was a day all about Rose. Harry walks her out as she leaves and tells her that Big hung around the hospital the entire time and didn't leave. He thinks Big was waiting for Carrie to show up so he could talk to her. Carrie says she doesn't want to talk about it but Harry tells he that Big has been writing to her, hoping she'd respond someday. She tells him she never got any mail from him. She then remembers that she told Louise to get rid of any e-mail from Big.
She goes online and eventually realizes that Louise never tossed them, she kept them in a folder on CarrieBradshaw.com. Carrie finds them and there are about 30 or 40 mails from Big, all with the subject, "love letter." Each one is a different long, love letter from the book that she was reading at the beginning of the movie. The very last mail is one from him, which simply says, "I love you forever. Please forgive me."
She cries but can't bring herself to call him.
Back in LA, Sam finally decides to break up with Smith. She tells him that she misses everything being about herself and that she just isn't a relationship person. It's complete bullshit. Seriously. It's the dumbest thing in this movie or in any movie I’ve seen in a while. Then Carrie has this dumb-assed voice over about how some loves are still great even though they end. Blah, blah, blah. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. She dumps him and moves back to NYC and we don't even see her again until the very end of the movie.
Meanwhile, the apartment that they bought is being sold, but Carrie left a great pair of shoes in the closet and goes back to get them on the last day before the apartment is given to the new owners. She goes in and finds Big in the closet holding her shoes. He tells her he was going to send them back to her. She drops her bag and runs to him and they kiss. It's a very Awwwww moment. They lay on the floor of the closet together and talk about how messed up everything got. He still wants to marry her and tells her that the way they went about it before was just wrong. He didn't get her a ring and everything was too business-like. She gets up and he begins to get up but stays down on his knee in front of her and asks her to marry him. She says yes and he grabs the shoe and puts it on her foot. They kiss.
The next scene has them in the courthouse without anyone they know. They get married privately and Carrie wears the label-less dress she originally wanted to wear. As they leave, Big tells her he thinks she would have liked her friends to be there and she sort of shrugs. Then he tells her, "that's why I called them!" and he opens the door and the girls are all standing there screaming for her.
The last scene is of the girls in a restaurant celebrating Sam's 50th birthday. Carrie has an voice over talking about finding love and letting love in. And how women everywhere were just starting out in the relationship journey and have so much ahead of them. The camera pans to all the groups of women in the restaurants and outside who are just like Carrie, et al.
The end.
My Review
The movie is a disappointment to say the least. If you loved how the series ended, you may want to simply skip the movie. The Carrie/Big scenes are good, and if that's all you're in it for then you may love it. But for the rest of us, the movie felt so out of touch with the series that it's almost not recognizable. I felt it was so empty... so devoid of everything that made S&TC great.
First of all, I'm a die-hard Sam fan, but even moreso I'm a diehard Sam/Smith fan more than any other aspect of the show. If that's your deal, seriously, DO NOT see the movie unless you're willing to overlook the butchery. Enjoy how wonderful season 6 was and let it rest as that beautiful, wonderful relationship.
Because the movie? Totally ruins it. They break up because...wait for it... Sam wants everything to be about her. Yeah... I call shenanigans!
The Positives
1. The funny moments were truly funny. There's a scene of Sam noticing that Miranda hasn't gotten a bikini wax in what looks like years. It's totally gross but so funny. And Charlotte shitting herself was pretty hilarious too.
2. As sad as the Carrie/Big stuff was for the most part, I'm so happy with how it ended. I love that he sent her all of the love letters and his was the most simple and perfect.
3. I liked Jennifer Hudson as Louise. She was one of the more natural things about the movie. And they didn't overuse her.
4. Steve. As much as I can sympathize with Miranda (I just don't think I'd ever take my husband back. In fact, I've told him that if ever cheated on me NOT to tell me because I wouldn't be able to forgive him. I just couldn't, I don't think), I thought David Eigenberg played Steve so well. He just loves her so much and couldn't stand what he did. And I almost understand why he did it. Miranda is such a fucking bitch sometimes. She's ridiculous. But there's no excuse for cheating so I understand her anger. I still love Steve, though. He was great and I was glad to see them back together.
Complaints:
1.The clothes and advertising in the movie borders on the ridiculous and has more screen time than most of the cast does.
2. No great Sam sex scene in the whole movie. In fact, she's not really in the movie that much except to remind us, over and over, that she's not satisfied in her relationship with Smith. And Smith had a total of about 5 lines. Maybe not even that many.
3. Sam and Smith break up. The reason? Sam just doesn't like relationships and wants everything to be all about her once again. This pretty much killed the movie for me. I'm convinced that I'm the black widow of shipping. No ship I passionately love ever works out. Want a couple to break up? Call me. I'll start liking them and in no time they will. I almost don't want to go see the X-Files movie in a few weeks out of fear Scully and Mulder will break up. Because, really? I think I'll have a nervous breakdown if they do. I need ONE ship to work out, dammit. It's been a rough year.
(sidebar: Maybe if I start saying I love House/Cuddy they won't happen? Do you think it works like that?)
4. Depressing! The whole movie is depressing until the very end. The only nice part was Harry and Charlotte and they weren't in the movie much. I'm surprised that they didn't have Harry fucking a maid or something because that's kind of how the whole movie went. At least Charlotte and Harry were still great.
5. For a movie that's 2 1/2 hours long, I left wondering where the hell the characters were. I honestly don't remember that many scenes with the girls together in them. Or maybe they were just all so distant that it didn't feel like a normal SatC episode. I mean, watch any episode and it's character packed. It feels full and great in a half an hour. This long movie felt completely.... empty. Worse yet is that I can't articulate as to why.
6. The overall storyline, outside of Big and Carrie. There really wasn't any storyline or plot to speak of. In each episode of the show, there's usually a theme. Here there wasn't. Sam didn't like LA and felt trapped. Charlotte was happy. Miranda and Steve weren't. That's it. I guess you could loosely say that the plot was about how the only happy endings you get are the ones for yourself, not in a relationship. But even that's a stretch.
7. Carrie doesn't seem to be writing her column anymore.
Overall, I felt ripped off as a fan. The great moments didn't make up for the crappy moments. The happy ending was tainted because Sam and Smith weren't together. Nothing felt the same. So I'm going to hold on to my SatC DVDs and watch them over and over until the movie is erased from my memory.
To take a page from Sam, I totally lost my hard-on.
> Short summary of the movie.
> VERY detailed summary.
> Review... I recommend reading at least one summary before reading the review or you'll be lost.
The Short Summary
Carrie and Big decide to get married after buying an apartment together. She's researching old love letters written by powerful men for her latest book on love itself, rather than the pursuit of it. The wedding starts out small and low key, but soon grows insane and Big starts to panic. At the last minute just before the wedding begins, Big freaks out and calls Carrie from his car and tells her he can't go through with it. Right after the call, he realizes that he's being an idiot and decides to go back, but it's too late- Carrie is heartbroken and won't let him explain.
Charlotte finds out she's pregnant. Her and Harry already have a little Mandarin daughter named Lily that they adopted. But they're still ecstatic. She goes into labor while yelling at Big when she sees him at a restaurant. He brings her to the hospital and stays the whole time. She has a daughter named Rose.
Miranda and Steve are having issues. They haven't had sex in 6 months and when they finally do, Miranda just says that she wants to 'get it over with'. Steve cheats on her but is devestated and ashamed and tells her so. She leaves him. They make up later and Miranda forgives him.
Sam and Smith are living in LA where he's a big tv star, but Sam misses NYC and is tired of her life revolving so much around Smith. She breaks up with him and moves back to NY. She wants life to selfishly be all about her once again.
As Carrie leaves the hospital visiting Charlotte, Harry follows her out and tells her that Big mentioned that he'd been writing to her for months, hoping she'd call him. Carrie notes that she's never gotten any mail from him. She then remembers telling her assistant to delete all e-mail from him automatically. She figures out that her assistant didn't delete them but, instead, placed them in a special folder. Carrie finds them and reads each one with the subject "Love letter" in which he'd copied a different love letter from the book Carrie was reading in the beginning of the movie. There are tons of them. The final mail is one from Big himself that says simply, "I love you forever. Please forgive me."
She later finds him in their apartment holding a pair of her shoes. She runs to him and they kiss, and Big proposes to her properly and places the shoe on her foot instead of a ring. They get married in a simple ceremony at a courthouse while the girls wait outside. Miranda and Steve also make up and the last scene is at Sam's 50th birthday party at a restaurant where Carrie voice-overs about all the 20-something women out there who are just starting out in the city looking for love. The camera pans over all the women in the restaurant and going into the restaurant. The end.
The Very Detailed Summary
The movie starts out with Carrie and Big, happy as ever. It picks up about 4 years after the series finale. Carrie and Big are still in love and everyone's relationship seems to be good. They're in bed one night reading and he asks her what she's reading and she shows him it's a collection of these long and involved love letters from powerful men. She's researching her new book all about what love really is, rather than the pursuit of it (she's written 3 books at this point). Carrie asks him if he's ever written a love letter to her and he tells her that it isn't his style (or something. I'm hazy on what he said to her here).
Charlotte and Harry have their daughter, Lily, who's fucking adorable but I honestly would rather of her been in the movie less. They never had private girl-time together because the kid was always around. You'd think Charlotte could afford to get a babysitter, at least for the bachelorette night they had together, but no. So everything was PG.
Charlotte and Harry are still very happy together, but we don't see that much of them.
Sam and Smith are living in LA where Smith has become a George Clooney-esque tv doctor on a hit show. Sam isn't happy there and feels her life has become more about Smith and managing his career than about her.
Miranda and Steve are still in Brooklyn but they both seem unhappy. Miranda is working a lot and Steve is trying to get closer to her and she keeps pushing him away. Can't blame her... I mean she's tired and there's a lot to deal with with their son and work and her mother-in-law. The sex is sort of gone from the marriage, no matter how hard Steve tries to connect with her. They finally start to have sex at one point, and Steve tells her not to come yet and to get on top of him. She blurts out, 'let's just get it over with.'
Carrie and Big decide to move in together and they find this amazing apartment. It's gorgeous and huge. She doesn't think they can afford it but Big tells her, "I've got it." The only problem Carrie sees is that the closet is tiny. So Big tells her he can have that fixed.
The girls get together for an auction a woman is having. The woman's rich boyfriend broke up with her after 10 years, and literally locked her out of the apartment out of the blue. So she was selling all of the jewelry he'd ever given her at this auction. Sam is excited about the auction because there's a ring that she wants really bad. She wants to buy it for herself as a way to reward herself for working so hard. She goes up to 50 thousand dollars for the ring, but there's another woman who's bidding on behalf of another buyer. She goes up to 60K and Sam promised she wouldn't go above 50. She doesn't get the ring and is very disappointed.
Later, the girls have lunch and talk about how horrible it had to be to have the relationship end the way it did for the poor woman who sold her jewelry. The woman literally had nowhere to live because the guy owned everything and had bought everything for her. This makes Carrie worry about selling her apartment and letting Big handle everything.
So one night they're in their kitchen and she brings up the fact that she worries that, as much as she loves him, he sort of controls everything. It's not really 'their' apartment because he signed the contract and he owns it. So Big asks her nonchalantly if she wants to get married. She's a bit stunned and says she's not sure. It depends on if that's what he wants. He sweetly says he'd love to be married to her. There was no ring or anything, and it was all a big business-like, but they decide to get married.
Back in LA, Smith walks over to Sam with this huge hard-on and she looks excited. Then we see that it's just a box Smith has in his pants. He takes it out and tells her it's an anniversary gift; it was 5 years ago to the day that he met her. She opens it and it's the ring from the auction. HE was the one the auction woman was bidding for. She's excited and loves it at first, but then at lunch with the girls back in NY, tells them she was actually mad about it. She wanted to buy the ring for herself. Everything in her life was about Smith... she was managing him, he was her biggest client, they were living together, etc. She wanted to go back to the days where she did everything for herself and everything was about her. She's also trying not to cheat on Smith with this hot guy who lives next to her.
Meanwhile, Carrie tells the girls about being engaged and everyone is excited. She wants a small wedding and buys this 'label-less' business-style dress she found in a thrift shop. She has 75 people on her list for guests to the wedding. Then Vogue calls and asks her to pose in a pictorial wearing these gorgeous, designer wedding gowns. She reluctantly says yes and does the pictorial. One of the designers sends her the dress she posed in as a gift... and that's the beginning of the end.
She decides to wear that dress for the wedding. Then the small wedding turns into a huge affair. 75 guests turns into 200 from her side alone. Big asks her why everything changed and she says that the dress was so amazing that it made her change her mind about keeping it small. She decides to get married in the NYC Library. Meanwhile, she doesn't really let Big in on any of these decisions. He starts to get a bit freaked out because everything and everyone around him keeps reminding him that marriage changes everything and he's already failed at it twice. He loves Carrie so much but doesn't want to lose her because 'things change.' He loves her, though, and continues with the wedding plans.
Steve tells Miranda that he cheated on her. He's almost more devastated than Miranda is. He loves her so much and he needed to tell her because it was killing him to lie to her. She's understandably heartbroken and leaves. She moves out and gets a new apartment of her own. She refuses to take Steve back no matter how much he apologizes. Steve is devastated and depressed. He apologizes to her every time he sees her.
It's the night before the wedding and they're having a big dinner for Carrie and Big. Big is trying not to freak out but he keeps getting all of these reminders that he's been married twice before and that marriage always ends badly. Then, right as he's sort of on the breaking point, Steve shows up at the party and talks to Miranda outside. He apologizes again and tells her he loves her. She tells him that she changed her whole life for him and that he broke her... he broke them. As she goes back into the party, Big stops her and asks if she's okay. In a fit of anger, she tells him he's insane to marry Carrie and to get married again and that it will surely end in disaster.
Later that night at Carrie's apartment they're having a girl's night (although Charlotte brought her daughter which was so stupid). Big calls Carrie and tells her he's freaking out a little. She talks him down and tells him it's just them... him and her. They love each other and if he can't think of anything to say for his vows, to just say that he’ll love her forever and that will be enough. He seems a bit more relaxed after that.
The next day everyone's going off to the wedding and Carrie is all dressed (sorry, but she looks horrible!!). Big is sitting out in front of the Library, having a panic attack. He keeps trying to call Carrie because he needs to hear her voice to calm him down. But Charlotte's daughter Lily took Carrie's phone and hid it. He's freaking out until he sees Carrie's limo pull in front of the library. She's getting out with all the girls. Big tells himself, "c'mon, baby, turn around and see me. Look at me." He needs to see her face and be reassured that it's just him and her, despite all the insanity. But she doesn't see him and she has her veil on. He panics and tells the driver to go.
Carrie finds out that Big isn't at the Library and calls him using Sam's cell phone. He tells her he just doesn't think he can go through with it. Carrie drops the phone, devastated. She freaks out and tells the girls to get her out of there. They get in the limo and begin to drive away.
Big, meanwhile, halfway down the block realizes how stupid he's being and tells the driver to turn around. They end up coming right to Carrie's limo and they see each other and both get out. Carrie, though, is enraged and heartbroken and won't listen to him. She hits him over and over with her bouquet and just keeps slapping him asking, "how could you do this?!!! I'm humiliated! How could you?!" Charlotte finally grabs her and gets her back into the car while Big is completely shaken. Charlotte looks back at Big with complete disgust. Big just stands there shocked and teary-eyed, realizing he's lost her.
Carrie is completely devastated. She refuses to hear any phone messages or email or anything from Big. She wants him completely out of her life. She had secretly booked a Mexican vacation for them at a 5-star hotel in Mexico and she couldn't get out of it, so the girls all decide to take her there themselves. Carrie is completely depressed and sleeps for days. She finally snaps out of it but wonders if she'll ever laugh again. The girls tell her she will when something truly funny forces her to.
Meanwhile, Charlotte is refusing to eat or drink any food, fearing Montezuma's revenge. At one point, though, she's taking a shower and is relaxed and doesn't realize she's drinking the water from the shower. On her way back to the bungalow, it hits her hard. She passes by the girls and tries to get into the room but it's locked because the housekeepers are cleaning. She shits her pants right there, making all the girls laugh until they cry. Carrie finally laughs, seeing as how it's the funniest thing she's ever seen.
They go back home and Carrie dyes her hair dark brown cause she needs a change. She hires an assistant to help her move back into her old apartment. The assistant, Louise, tells her she has tons of messages from Big but Carrie tells her to delete all of them and to, in fact, have any messages from him automatically removed.
There's a bit of a time-passing montage and Sam buys this little girl dog who she sees on the street humping everything she sees. The seller says that she's fixed but still can't get over the urge to fuck everything she sees. Sam loves her for it and buys her. We see Charlotte getting much bigger and Miranda still not forgiving Steve.
Miranda is lonely on New Year's Eve and calls Carrie, who goes over. Louise has left for home for the holiday and so she's also alone. They spend New Year's Eve together in Miranda's apartment.
A little more passage of time and it's now Valentine's day. Miranda and Carrie decide to go out to eat together. In a sad moment, Carrie confesses that it was her fault Big freaked out. She didn't blame herself for him leaving but she really pushed too hard and she heard it in his voice the night before the wedding when he called. She should have known. Miranda finally confesses to what she told Big that night about being crazy to marry Carrie. Carrie is completely shocked and hurt by this and yells in the middle of the restaurant. She can't believe her best friend would keep a secret like that from her, knowing that she's been blaming herself for all those months. She tells Miranda coldly that she's an idiot for not forgiving Steve. She walks out of the restaurant. Despite Miranda pleading for Carrie to forgive her, Carrie doesn't speak to her for a while.
Meanwhile, Charlotte finds out she's pregnant. She's shocked but insanely happy. She's a regular jogger and gets scared that something bad is going to happen to the baby. She feels like everything in her life is almost too good in comparison to how bad it's been for everyone else and that something bad must be around the corner. She feels guilty for being happy while her friends are all suffering. So she's scared to death she'll lose the baby. But after talking to Carrie, she stops worrying so much and begins light jogging again.
In LA, Sam is trying not to cheat on Smith with their hot, sex-crazed neighbor, and Smith is working a lot. Sam decides to cover herself with sushi and lay on a table naked for Valentine's Day. She waits for Smith to come home but he calls and lets her know that he's stuck at the studio and will be home as soon as he can. She has a hissy fit when he gets home and throws the sushi at him. He doesn’t get to give her the big, heart-shaped box of chocolates he’d gotten her.
Back in NY, Miranda waits outside Carrie's apartment in a cab so that she has to speak to her. They finally talk and Carrie tells her how hurt she was that she didn't tell her right away about what she said to Big. She was blaming herself for months and Miranda knew it and let her. Miranda apologizes again and they make up.
Meanwhile, Louise and her ex-boyfriend get back together and get engaged. Louise tells Carrie she's moving back to St. Louis to be with him. She gives Carrie her "love' keychain that she always kept with her because she had found her love and didn't need it anymore. She wanted Carrie to have it until she found hers as well.
Miranda decides to give Steve another chance and they go to therapy. Steve is scared that she'll never forgive him and she's scared she'll never trust him. The therapist suggests that they start over fresh, leaving everything that happened in the past. They are told to separate for 2 weeks and to not see each other. Then agree to meet somewhere together if they decide to forgive one another and start over. If either doesn't show up, then they'll know that they just can't move on.
Miranda isn't sure, right up to the very day they're supposed to meet on the Brooklyn bridge, but then she sees that she has a milk mustache in the mirror, which goes back to the beginning of the movie where he wipes one from her mouth for her in a sweet moment. She knows right then that she forgives him and then meets him on the bridge. They kiss and hold hands together.
Charlotte goes to lunch at a nice restaurant a week before she's due and she sees Big at a table not far away. She freaks out and decides to leave but she's so big that it's hard not to notice her, which Big does. He runs out after her. She gets so mad, telling him that she was the one who always defended him all those years and how she curses the day he was ever born. Then her water breaks right there. So Big takes her to the hospital.
In the next scene, Carrie arrives at the hospital to see Charlotte's new daughter, Rose. Charlotte tells her that Big was the one who brought her to the hospital but Carrie doesn't want to talk about it because it was a day all about Rose. Harry walks her out as she leaves and tells her that Big hung around the hospital the entire time and didn't leave. He thinks Big was waiting for Carrie to show up so he could talk to her. Carrie says she doesn't want to talk about it but Harry tells he that Big has been writing to her, hoping she'd respond someday. She tells him she never got any mail from him. She then remembers that she told Louise to get rid of any e-mail from Big.
She goes online and eventually realizes that Louise never tossed them, she kept them in a folder on CarrieBradshaw.com. Carrie finds them and there are about 30 or 40 mails from Big, all with the subject, "love letter." Each one is a different long, love letter from the book that she was reading at the beginning of the movie. The very last mail is one from him, which simply says, "I love you forever. Please forgive me."
She cries but can't bring herself to call him.
Back in LA, Sam finally decides to break up with Smith. She tells him that she misses everything being about herself and that she just isn't a relationship person. It's complete bullshit. Seriously. It's the dumbest thing in this movie or in any movie I’ve seen in a while. Then Carrie has this dumb-assed voice over about how some loves are still great even though they end. Blah, blah, blah. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. She dumps him and moves back to NYC and we don't even see her again until the very end of the movie.
Meanwhile, the apartment that they bought is being sold, but Carrie left a great pair of shoes in the closet and goes back to get them on the last day before the apartment is given to the new owners. She goes in and finds Big in the closet holding her shoes. He tells her he was going to send them back to her. She drops her bag and runs to him and they kiss. It's a very Awwwww moment. They lay on the floor of the closet together and talk about how messed up everything got. He still wants to marry her and tells her that the way they went about it before was just wrong. He didn't get her a ring and everything was too business-like. She gets up and he begins to get up but stays down on his knee in front of her and asks her to marry him. She says yes and he grabs the shoe and puts it on her foot. They kiss.
The next scene has them in the courthouse without anyone they know. They get married privately and Carrie wears the label-less dress she originally wanted to wear. As they leave, Big tells her he thinks she would have liked her friends to be there and she sort of shrugs. Then he tells her, "that's why I called them!" and he opens the door and the girls are all standing there screaming for her.
The last scene is of the girls in a restaurant celebrating Sam's 50th birthday. Carrie has an voice over talking about finding love and letting love in. And how women everywhere were just starting out in the relationship journey and have so much ahead of them. The camera pans to all the groups of women in the restaurants and outside who are just like Carrie, et al.
The end.
My Review
The movie is a disappointment to say the least. If you loved how the series ended, you may want to simply skip the movie. The Carrie/Big scenes are good, and if that's all you're in it for then you may love it. But for the rest of us, the movie felt so out of touch with the series that it's almost not recognizable. I felt it was so empty... so devoid of everything that made S&TC great.
First of all, I'm a die-hard Sam fan, but even moreso I'm a diehard Sam/Smith fan more than any other aspect of the show. If that's your deal, seriously, DO NOT see the movie unless you're willing to overlook the butchery. Enjoy how wonderful season 6 was and let it rest as that beautiful, wonderful relationship.
Because the movie? Totally ruins it. They break up because...wait for it... Sam wants everything to be about her. Yeah... I call shenanigans!
The Positives
1. The funny moments were truly funny. There's a scene of Sam noticing that Miranda hasn't gotten a bikini wax in what looks like years. It's totally gross but so funny. And Charlotte shitting herself was pretty hilarious too.
2. As sad as the Carrie/Big stuff was for the most part, I'm so happy with how it ended. I love that he sent her all of the love letters and his was the most simple and perfect.
3. I liked Jennifer Hudson as Louise. She was one of the more natural things about the movie. And they didn't overuse her.
4. Steve. As much as I can sympathize with Miranda (I just don't think I'd ever take my husband back. In fact, I've told him that if ever cheated on me NOT to tell me because I wouldn't be able to forgive him. I just couldn't, I don't think), I thought David Eigenberg played Steve so well. He just loves her so much and couldn't stand what he did. And I almost understand why he did it. Miranda is such a fucking bitch sometimes. She's ridiculous. But there's no excuse for cheating so I understand her anger. I still love Steve, though. He was great and I was glad to see them back together.
Complaints:
1.The clothes and advertising in the movie borders on the ridiculous and has more screen time than most of the cast does.
2. No great Sam sex scene in the whole movie. In fact, she's not really in the movie that much except to remind us, over and over, that she's not satisfied in her relationship with Smith. And Smith had a total of about 5 lines. Maybe not even that many.
3. Sam and Smith break up. The reason? Sam just doesn't like relationships and wants everything to be all about her once again. This pretty much killed the movie for me. I'm convinced that I'm the black widow of shipping. No ship I passionately love ever works out. Want a couple to break up? Call me. I'll start liking them and in no time they will. I almost don't want to go see the X-Files movie in a few weeks out of fear Scully and Mulder will break up. Because, really? I think I'll have a nervous breakdown if they do. I need ONE ship to work out, dammit. It's been a rough year.
(sidebar: Maybe if I start saying I love House/Cuddy they won't happen? Do you think it works like that?)
4. Depressing! The whole movie is depressing until the very end. The only nice part was Harry and Charlotte and they weren't in the movie much. I'm surprised that they didn't have Harry fucking a maid or something because that's kind of how the whole movie went. At least Charlotte and Harry were still great.
5. For a movie that's 2 1/2 hours long, I left wondering where the hell the characters were. I honestly don't remember that many scenes with the girls together in them. Or maybe they were just all so distant that it didn't feel like a normal SatC episode. I mean, watch any episode and it's character packed. It feels full and great in a half an hour. This long movie felt completely.... empty. Worse yet is that I can't articulate as to why.
6. The overall storyline, outside of Big and Carrie. There really wasn't any storyline or plot to speak of. In each episode of the show, there's usually a theme. Here there wasn't. Sam didn't like LA and felt trapped. Charlotte was happy. Miranda and Steve weren't. That's it. I guess you could loosely say that the plot was about how the only happy endings you get are the ones for yourself, not in a relationship. But even that's a stretch.
7. Carrie doesn't seem to be writing her column anymore.
Overall, I felt ripped off as a fan. The great moments didn't make up for the crappy moments. The happy ending was tainted because Sam and Smith weren't together. Nothing felt the same. So I'm going to hold on to my SatC DVDs and watch them over and over until the movie is erased from my memory.