SATC

Last night I saw the Sex and the City movie with some girlfriends and one brave boy. I loved it. Of course I'm not an objective viewer, and I can't objectively say whether it was an objectively good film, but that's not the point. The point was the talented writers and actresses and movie-people that created a real and emotional connection to the characters and their stories. Yeah, they had over-the-top sex and over-the-top fashion and unrealistic apartments and jobs. But they also had deep, solid friendships, and explored the realities of love - the good, the bad, and the perplexing in-between - in an unbelievably honest, realistic, un-sugarcoated way. In the TV series the girls each had strong, defining identities and personalities and spent the run of the show looking for true love and men who were strong enough to be by their side. At the end of the series, and in the film, they have each found the love they've always wanted and the men they've always dreamed of. The fantasy has been fulfilled, and then comes the reality of...did I sacrifice myself in the process of getting what I thought I always wanted? The four girls (or only three of them, really) struggle, each in their own way, with having found love and life with a partner but having lost much of themselves in the process. The main theme of the movie, in my mind, was finding the balance of a passionate relationship and building a life with another person while being passionately yourself and staying true to who you are. My favorite line from the film was:

'Don't give up who you are just because you're afraid.'

For those who never saw the show but assumed to know it from the title, or were put off from the snippets they did see, the excessive sex and fashion and glamor were never the point of the show, or what made women devotees of the series. The point was exploring and dealing with and thinking about life's hard, gritty questions in a way that didn't make you want to jump off a bridge. Two of of my favorite lines from the TV series are:

'I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love.'

and

'The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.'