The movie does to male characters what most movies do to female characters: Male part enters, stage right, and remains peripheral and stupid. I mean, when did Mr. Big turn into Fabian? All guys should watch this movie actually. The pain of seeing the male gender so classified and restricted might give men a better understanding of how odd it is for women to see women treated with the same degree of Director and screenwriters’, “Hunh, honey? Did you say something?” attitude that exists in 90 percent of the rest of filmdom.

In other words, the man-acting was, um, stiff. And fantastical.

And the clothes, mon dieu. Are we to seriously believe that there would be more than four shades of black and two or three primary colors on a New York City street at any one time? I know people that travel west of the Hudson only in sunglasses, saying, “It’s so bright – so bright. I’m not used to this much color!” Only kidding, sort of, but some of the scenes looked like Easter bonnets at Temple.

Ok, running through SJP’s 80’s dresses collection was fun and a lesson to all of us: Never be photographed in high fashion. The fashion fades; the photographs linger.

And still, I really liked it. So what’s wrong with me? Nothing, really. The movie did not have the quirky innovation experience equal to watching an entire season of SATC on a snowed-in weekend, and it seemed to be oddly lacking in, well, sex, but there I was, routing right along, laughing with the girls when they laughed, as if I were at the table with them. And I got goosebumps when SJP gifted her assistant ( Dreamgirls Jennifer Hudson) with the perfect present (because I am product nuts, apparently). G_d, that was sweet. And although I may not be able to relate to how it is to be female and, say, a serial killer on death row or a rape victim turn chillingly efficient vigilante – as in some movies, I can relate to a broken heart, a seriously bad reflection in the mirror, and hiding under the covers for a few days.

And that’s kind of how it is: bad scripting, embarrassingly predictable predicaments (take a memo: you put a bird on your wedding veil or tell your husband to hurry up and orgasm already, and you will be sorry), bleeding obvious product placement and staging, you know – the kind of things that if forced on a French director would lead to his suicide (actually, one good part is that there is more male nudity then female and another reason for Pierre to leap). And were we really expected to accept that Carrie did not know about rentable handbags? Ouch. But the female characters are now part of the living room, and we still believe we are part of theirs. And there’s magic in that result.