i went to go see Sex and the City saturday with a friend. we both enjoy films shoved sneeringly(by many men) in the category of "chick flick" as well as the original HBO show, which i have often defended -- for all its neuroticism and its materialism -- as being fundamentally radical in its depiction of modern women as power-, sex-, and money-hungry agents of their own creation (or destruction). plus, it was funny. it was a little like Absolutely Fabulous without the vicious cruelty.

but i found myself hard-pressed to defend the film to detractors. although so many of the same elements of the TV show were still present: fashion, status satire, romantic troubles. but the effervescent wit that lifted those ugly reflections of modern materialism and narcissism was defeated when faced with 148 minutes of turgid and heavy-handed soap opera melodrama. the sight of four affluent women bemoaning their lives wears a sensible person's patience quite thin over that time.