SEX IN THE CITY lite - Colorful and fun

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2007)

Every other decade or so, a major studio film comes along that is about fashion more than anything else, with fantastic clothing, a focus on clothing and fads, a good script, big name actors and cooperation of the great designers of the day. The DWP is that film for this decade, and joins the ranks of THE WOMEN (1939), HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (53), FUNNY FACE (57), A NEW KIND OF LOVE (63), WHAT A WAY TO GO (64), and to a lesser extent CLUELESS (95), and LEGALLY BLONDE (2001). All bright, fun and entertaining, and this is too!
Meryl Streep has never (not even at the Oscar ceremonies) ever looked lovelier than she is in this film, as she embodies the jaded fashionista woman of the turn of the millennium. She is the title character in this modern day morality tale pitting "goods" against good. When we finally see behind the facade, we see the same Streep we usually see at core.
The young, lushly pretty Anne Hathaway (still Disney Princess perfect) plays the "smart fat girl" in a piece of incongruous casting. While the joke here is partially that she is NOT fat, this is also a piece of Industry hypocrisy; pointing out the lunacy while doing nothing to correct it. This story follows her path from idealism to selling out in a story that was main-streamed in the process of turning from book to film. The commentary track of the reel details how often they strove to make her character "identifiable," which means they took a fuller character and made her more bland; and indeed this is a somewhat Disney-fied version of a single girl's life and trials there is so much territory to cover that relationships are left much more to short hand than to real development.
These "fashion" films definitely reflect the commonplace morality of the times in their leading lady, and this is no exception. Not entirely airbrushed, this character is living unmarried with a boyfriend and one of her temptations is a more fashionable upscale guy (I won't spoil this plot point by telling ), so it is rather SEX IN THE CITY  lite. In this day of international markets, while this character's morality is OK in the US, in many foreign markets any word to describe her would not be nice.
While this is a bright, brisk "romantic-comic" film with the usual (more mawkish than mainstream) family-friendly sentiments adhered to overall; you should be really careful when having children watch this; not only because the insidious ethics enacted by Hathaway's supposedly sweet, smart, character, but precisely because she has been a Disney heroine, and may be regarded as more of a role model for that reason.
The supporting cast is fantastic with Stanley Tucci & Emily Blunt leading the fashion brigade. Colorful, and completely enjoyable, a bubble gum treat.