Sarah Jessica Parker

‘Sex and the City: The Movie’ a Frilly University For Understanding the Human Condition

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:14:47 -0700

CHICAGO – To its voracious universe of cult-following fans, it feels like a television marathon that spans an entire season. To everyone else who bats an indifferent eye at the religion that is “Sex and the City,” it may surprise you to find that all the glam and glitz has something even for you to learn, too.

Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex and the City: The Movie”.
Credit: Craig Blankenhorn, New Line Cinema

The thorniest proposition for “Sex and the City: The Movie,” though, is opening the minds of all the anti-fashionistas (such as yours truly) and those who habitually bottle up their emotions for safekeeping.

After all, “Sex and the City” is often about a word that hurls the masses off in a scurry: feeling. For those who embrace all that is “love and labels,” though, the film begins by succinctly flashing back on plotlines avid followers know all too well.

Season watchers are nearly forced and relatively brainwashed into securing a theater seat, and unfortunately, followers and non-followers alike arrive to the theater with having already been told much too much from the trailer.

Will Carrie marry Big? Will Charlotte – who’s thought to be infertile – have her own baby? What will become of Miranda and the cheating Steve? Will the scurrilous Samantha actually settle down with Smith? Will the predominantly white cast finally paint some color into the picture?

To the last question, Chicago’s Jennifer Hudson (who on the film’s “pink carpet” said she gets bronzed by rubbing on her “Dreamgirls” Oscar) says yes. As for the other questions, the film would have injected even more “what’ll happen next?” revelation by not giving such an initial peek up its own dress.

After initially cursing the all-too-telling trailer, I planted myself in my theater seat prepared for a 142-minute commitment. Not so. At our press screening, we were treated to another 30 minutes of a live satellite feed that counted down to the Chicago screening with the pink-carpet coverage.

Left to right: Kristin Davis as Charlotte York-Goldenblatt, Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes and Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones in New Line Cinema’s “Sex and the City: The Movie”.
Photo credit: Craig Blankenhorn, New Line Cinema

Combined, the experience even neared the 195 minutes it took Steven Spielberg to give justice to the entire Holocaust in 1993’s “Schindler’s List”. Writer and director Michael Patrick King could have cut nearly 30 minutes of screen time had he met with an editor by the name of No Cheese For Me, Please.

Alas, though, this critic indeed scores “Sex and the City: The Movie” with a relatively positive rating of 3.5 out of 5.0.

Despite the aforementioned relatively trifling gripes, the film indeed gets to the heart of the human matter. In consistently exploring and explicitly discussing what women feel and what men need, the subject matter has a higher purpose.

It’s a purpose that’s to be commended in entertainment today because while it’s still certainly entertainment, everyone – no matter what race, religion, sexual orientation or relationship status – has something to take from these four women and the characters who surround them.

Chris Noth as Mr. Big in “Sex and the City: The Movie”.
Photo credit: Craig Blankenhorn, New Line Cinema

Of course, the “Sex and the City” style is to offer a carrot in the beginning and then change that story morale into, say, broccoli so we’re left with something to reflect deeply about. The process of delving into a woman’s head – for a man and even another woman – is ultimately a healthy exercise in understanding the human condition.

When women constantly compare themselves to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, they’re forced to ponder who they really are and who they want to become. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon themselves know most women are a combination of the foursome as a whole.

The film also explores a primary fifth character that – while not credited among the cast – is as large and tangible as any one of them: New York. Director Michael Patrick King has made the claim that this story couldn’t have existed anywhere else. While that’s debatable, what’s fact is that the show has brought some people to New York not only for the American dream but for the romance of falling in lasting love.

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Cast as Sarah Jessica Parker’s assistant, Jennifer Hudson has a convincing moment where she expresses exactly that pursuit. But with everyone trying to get hitched, hasn’t this story’s thesis rested squarely on the allure of being a single woman? No longer.

That said, what is it about television and film that hooks us into wondering whether someone will fall in love, break up, get married, have a baby, stop drinking or kick that drug habit?

While these celebrities are people the everyman will never associate with in their lifetimes, they’re actually more like messengers conveying portions of who we really are and hoping we find ways to improve ourselves.

That, at least, should be the point. Michael Patrick King (who also wrote various “Will & Grace,” “Cybill” and “Murphy Brown” episodes) succeeds at dangling that carrot and leaving us with something to chew on.

“Sex and the City: The Movie” opened on May 30, 2008 everywhere.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com

Ellen Page’s ‘Smart People’ Only as Scholarly as Zealous Senior in High School

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:05:37 -0700

CHICAGO – I’m flummoxed. I know “Smart People” was supposed to be comedic drama with a splash of romance. Instead, I have been misled. It’s not a comedy. It’s not a tragedy. It’s not even a tragicomedy.

“Smart People” is a blandly scripted “poor me” with an attempt at a plot and some glitzy Hollywood names thrown in for good box-office measure.

Ellen Page in “Smart People”.
Photo credit: IMDb

While I know this was no “Juno,” I couldn’t help cursing first-time writer Mark Poirier for not taking a much-needed page – or a full-fledged course of mentoring – from Oscar-winning “Juno” inker Diablo Cody.

“Smart People” is also a product of another newbie: first-time director Noam Murro.

Since her “Juno” stardom in 2007 – and actually her big-screen break out even before that in 2005’s “Hard Candy” – 21-year-old Ellen Page has righteously warranted her way on Hollywood’s “A” list.

My draw to “Smart People” was Page and Page alone. While she’s always a professional who crafts the best she can from the material she’s handed, an actor ultimately is a slave to his or her script. “Smart People” offensively held Page back whereas “Juno” unleashed her.

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I continued my mental cursing at Poirier when Page was forced to deliver lines that artificially made her sound smart. Instead, they just made it clear he’s trying way too hard and just not getting it. While I still enjoyed her performance because of the accolade woven deeply into her skin, she’s better than this.

Since “Juno,” Page has been being picky in the roles she has signed onto and has even dropped out of some. In Feb. 2008, Page pulled out of Sam Raimi’s upcoming horror-thriller “Drag Me to Hell” due to unhappiness with the script. Page was eventually replaced by Alison Lohman.

Poirier did, though, do one thing right: Thomas Haden Church.

In his supporting role, Church (from “Sideways” fame) is hand’s down the film’s savior and is generally a delicious feast through all his screen time. He’s the laissez-faire relief to help you cut through all the downbeat depression. Even he, though, is sometimes scripted predictably.

You just know he’s pegged to be that slipshod, toking doofus whose ass you’re going to glimpse through silly pajamas while in slumber.

Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page in “Smart People”.
Photo credit: IMDb

In his starring role, Dennis Quaid’s character is worn down, decrepit and dismal. While he’s clearly scripted that way, the problem is he unremarkably consumes most of the film but doesn’t make you remember it. He just gets by. He doesn’t sell it.

As a physician, Sarah Jessica Parker does very little for me despite some heartfelt attempts to convince you – and herself all the while – that she’s really feeling this story.

I just can’t eject her typecast “Sex and the City” persona out of my head. I kept expecting her to launch into expositions about sex, handbags or shoes.

Even more, I can’t buy Quaid and Parker sitting in a love tree. Age difference completely aside, you’re not sold on their romantic palpitations for each other. Their chemistry ultimately proves to be more of a repellent than a magnet.

Dennis Quaid in “Smart People”.
Photo credit: IMDb

Speaking of chemistry, Church and Page? Whaaaat? No. For all that’s holy, don’t ever do that again.

In asking a few random moviegoers following the film what they deemed to be the film’s funniest moment, several people pointed to when Quaid mounted a fence and clumsily fell down the other site in an attempt to retrieve his impounded car.

If that’s its funniest moment, there’s little doubt the film falls flat on its face in the comedy department. Even if it’s not, there’s zero question that “Smart People” is lacking here.

All in all, if you were to keep just Page and Church, cast replacements for Quaid and Parker and – well – jot an entirely new story, then we might have some people saying something actually smart.

“Smart People” opened on April 11, 2008.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com