Sex and the City: B+

We all recognize them: Charlotte (Kristen Davis), the perkily anal brunette, Samantha (Kim Cattrall), the dirty blonde sex-addict, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), the flame-haired ball-busting attorney, and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), that blond again/brown again writer-heroine...in love? The hair colors of the neo-Fab Four, and that last question, are posed as a way of cutting straight to the quick - that is, both the glam artifice represented by the quartet's chic 'dos and that timeless romantic interrogative (He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me...) take center stage in Michael Patrick King's tart, emotionally sweeping, way too satisfying Sex and the City.

King's film, based on the show of the same name that ran on HBO for six years (well, like, duh), is at once both true to the soul of the series, and a very necesary tweak. As an inheritor to Sex's throne, the movie would have to have a few things as a prerequisite, or else though certainly it had been made, they would not come. The requirements: each of the gals had to be back, and I mean actually back, with seperate storylines and everything; the biggest of the storylines from the show had to be carried on through (e.g., Carrie and Big's, the wealthy financier played by Chris Noth, romance, always a plot staple); and each of those fortysomethings had to look good - scratch that, damn good - traipsing up and down and all around New York City. The good news is that each of the three items on the above checklist is satisfied and thus, so is the long-time fan. The even better news is that for those people out in Great Ol' America who actually, you know, like movies, Sex will satisfy you to. Part of the reason is that it sweeps up all the newbies real quick like in the opening sequence, schooling us in whats been going on with who and how according to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. The even bigger reason though is that King, as writer-director, has the savvy talent to expand the canvas of the girl's emotional landscapes (accordingly the narrative potential follows suit) so that most of what's put on screen is both reliably stylish and quick, but also unexpectedly meaty and unfurling (as it should be, with a running time of about 140 minutes).

It goes like this: four years after the series finale, Carrie and Big are still in love, and still living in seperate apartments (their house hunting opens the film); Miranda and Steve (David Eigenberg) are still married...in Brooklyn; Charlotte and Henry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler) are still in perfect familial bliss, even with their adopted chinese daughter; and Samantha is still in L.A. with Smith (Jason Lewis), her sexy matinee idol. From these four romantic set-ups springs a plethora of drama, the largest of it centering around Carrie's marriage to Big. And the aftermath. (Don't worry, no spoilers here!) People are cheated on, knocked up, knocked down, hired, yelled at, cried on, and so forth. It's a messy and generous heart King, as writer and director, has tapped into. But he does it (mostly) with a deft grace, always lacing his rocky terrain of love with wit. Plus, for all those times the girls are breaking down or breaking up (or really, even if they're just standing on a street corner), they look...well...like you'd expect the cast of Sex and the City to look: great, gorgeous, stunning. In Carrie's New York, Fashion is God - and I'd be a liar to say watching them worship it isn't some sort of ocular nirvana.

Still, does one come to a movie to experience, or to take notes for Fashion Week? (On second thought, knowing my audience, don't answer that.) As an experience, Sex is gratifying across the board. As a director, King stages everything according to the cosmopolitan rhythms of his show, but he also lets a little punk-soul moderninity slip through, all for the better of course. And as the four muses of his camera, the cast is as good as their clothes. (Which means if you've been paying attention, they're pretty hot stuff.) Cythia Nixon, as the flintiest of the four, has the claws of a Fury and the brittle facade of an abuse victim, both of which mesh into one high-wire, compulsively wrenching performance. Kim Cattrall, as the vixen-cougar (and oldest) of the bunch, has comic timing to spare. Kristen Davis is the cove, the sole part of the whole with minimum neurosis, and in that her work is almost soothing. And then there is Sarah Jessica Parker (or henceforth, SJP): she's not just the star - she's the soul. And as is necesitated from her to sustain such a picture as this, as an actress, she has never been finer. She's older, more lined with weary, but she's also smarter, and rarely have I seen her unique gift - she makes humor seem the very soul of enlightenment.

Now, though, I have to be a downer. Because for a movie in which so much goes right, a lot of little things go wrong. For example: when Jennifer Hudson shows up as SJP's personal assistant, her resulting presence and "character arc" feel overly delicate at best, and at worst forced. And the Samantha/Smith sequences have poignance by their collective end, but it feels like a throwaway (and is thus roughly a layer too thin). Plus, the climactic wedding veers far too deep into Big. Teary. Melodramatic. Confrontation! (I almost laughed watching it in the theater, seriously.) Really though, I quibble. The script is a thing of delightful intelligence and warmth; and it feels good as an audience to sit back for once and have a film unfold before you for hours like a fat novel or a good seven course meal. In fact, I think Sex and the City is more like a great dinner than we realize: it's got fizz to help it go down quick, an aftertaste of richness and emotional piquance, and once it settles into your gut and heart - a very warm, enjoyable glow.