When I lived in California, I didn’t have cable. So I didn’t follow and actually couldn’t watch Sex and the City. Then one day, my friend Amy introduced me to the show. I was instantly hooked. I went and bought the DVDs of all the prior seasons and watched them back-to-back. We’d often get together in her house for dinner and watch the show together.

Sex and the City

Since the show ended four years ago, I’ve gotten my fix by catching late-night reruns on TBS. When I found out that the movie was coming out, Amy and I had to go see the movie the day it was released of course.

So 4PM on Friday found us in a packed theater in the heart of New York city with 440 women and 10 men. As the previews ended, Amy cracked open the champagne she’d smuggled into the theater – just in time for the huge cheer that went up for the movie.

The movie catches up with the fab four three to four (ten?) years after the last episode of the show. Everyone is older and firmly ensconced in the relationship we left them in four years ago. Oh – everyone is also much, much thinner. Almost gaunt. What’s up with that??

Anyway, coming back to the movie – Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is happy with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is in status-quo with husband Steve (David Eigenberg), kid and nanny, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is hanging with Harry (Evan Handler) and Lily (their adopted daughter) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is, unbelievably, still with (and faithful to) the hottie, Smith (Jason Lewis). All the favorite non-central characters like Sanford, Anthony and Enid are also back where we expect them to be.

Of course, we need to see some drama with all of them and we do – all centered around Big and Carrie’s wedding. Happy-happy goes to sad-sad to let’s-deal-with-this to I’m-happy-alone to… well, I’m not going to tell you where it goes to, but you get the picture.

The movie is like one long, long, long (2 hours 20 minutes??) episode of the show. It has all the glamor – the dresses and shoes are as fabulous as ever, the drama, the sex and the city that lovers of the show would expect. The jokes are still funny, the characters are still kooky and the margaritas are still consumed by the gallon.

Of course, there are elements which I didn’t love – Louise from St. Louis is a bit too earnest and she’s been primarily put in the movie to fulfill one dramatic duty. Some of the lines sound corny, trite and a bit forced. But overall, the theater laughed, sighed and aww-ed right on cue.

The key to enjoying the movie is to understand what to expect from it. It is not Gandhi. It is not The Lives of Others. It is a funny, quirky, girls-night-out film that you go see with your girlfriends to have a good time. It is a fond remembrance of the show that was, a nice little visit with the characters with whom we are on first-name basis.

If you loved the show,  you will enjoy the movie. So all you Sex and the City fans – head out and have a great time. As Carrie would type into her now-updated Mac – Isn’t catching up with old friends the best way a girl can spend the evening? Absolutely it is!

_{Photo rights: Craig Blankenhorn/New Line Cinema}