By Lorraine Duffy Merkl

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.

If this Dale Carnegie adage is true, then the women of Sex And The City 2 certainly are successful, but they sure ain’t happy. If, like Carrie & Co., your attitude of late has been lacking gratitude, you must take in this movie. Seeing what ungrateful looks like 30 feet high and 70 feet wide is enough to scare anyone straight.

Dissatisfaction really lies in the storylines of Carrie and Charlotte, who had me wanting to throw my popcorn-filled hands in the air. (Samantha’s story is about menopause and Miranda’s is about having a new boss who doesn’t like her; both characters deal with their issues in a positive way.)

Carrie (a.k.a. Mrs. Big) is bored with her exquisitely decorated pad/millionaire husband/Manolos-are-no-object life. Straight out of the grass-is-greener playbook, she indulges a flirtation with her one-time fiancé, Aidan. Carrie a cheater? I’ll never tell. But just the mere idea is evident from the trailer. That she might even entertain the thought of stepping out on the man for whom, over the course of six years, she pined, saw off to Paris, waited out his marriage, cheated with and forgave after he left her at the altar, made this once “every woman” appear every inch the spoiled brat.

Charlotte “I want a husband! I want a baby! A baby! A baby!” York achieved her dream life, yet, “They’re driving me crazy.” This coming from a woman who does not work, yet has a full-time nanny. Her baby “cries all the time” (does she not have a pediatrician who can advise her?) and her daughter ruins her outfit while making cupcakes. Perhaps if she weren’t wearing vintage designer duds while baking, it really wouldn’t have been an issue.

Both Carrie and Charlotte are guilty of what my grandmother used to call “complaining with two loaves of bread under each arm.” They are living the lives people come here in hopes to attain, but most never do.

So why is it that when some people reach their goals, they can still feel let down?

According to www.slowdownfast.com, problems arise because we often don’t know what we really want. Do you really want to get married or have a baby or be a lawyer, or are those other people’s expectations you’re trying to satisfy? If so, when you finally get “what you thought you desired, it isn’t really what we wanted after all.”

In relation to the movie, discontentment can also occur when your life changes but you don’t—as in, when a married woman still wants to run around like a single gal. Also, when you go into a situation with unrealistic expectations: for example, thinking yours will be the children who’ll never have tantrums or get dirty.

“Being grateful for what one does have can promote a sense of well-being and diminish dissatisfaction,” advises www.slowdownfast.com.

Will Carrie and Charlotte see the errors of their ways? You’ll have to find out for yourself. Despite the snarky reviews, the movie is dazzling: the clothes, the shoes, the opulent locations alone are worth the price of admission. I could have done without the road trip. Part of the allure of SATC has always been that NYC was the fifth friend, if you will. New York beats the new Middle East and anywhere else any day.

Just as with the first film, whose bigger message was forgiveness, SATC2 could possibly have you ready to utter something New Yorkers aren’t always given credit for: saying “thank you.” 

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Lorraine Duffy Merkl’s debut novel, Fat Chick, from The Vineyard Press, is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

By Armond White

Sex and the City 2 isn’t meant to be good; it’s meant to be TV, to further change movies into junk culture where you can’t tell one medium from the other. This includes diminishing romance, friendship, work and citizenship, thereby turning female stereotypes into gay male stereotypes. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristen Davis) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) aren’t characters anymore; they’re brands: Aged, wizened logos that writer-director Michael Patrick King doesn’t even bother refurbishing.

Since the storytelling in Sex and the City 2 is so shallow, it’s best to look at how the movie corrupts popular ideas about modern life in Al Qaeda’s prime target. Using Alicia Keys’ solo version of “Empire State of Mind” as a musical intro gets SATC2 off to a dishonest start from which it never recovers.

Charlotte, Carrie, Samantha and Miranda: in need of refurbishment.

Starting with Carrie’s arrival in New York on June 11, 1986, King’s appropriation of “Empire State of Mind” is consistent with his TV-fable of Clinton-era egotism (the HBO series hit its stride in the late ’90s). He ignores the realities of urban living that Jay-Z lays out and Keys strives to sing past. Their moral tension makes “Empire” a sociological love-hate torch song; it recalls the radicalism of golden-era rap when hip-hop artists challenged the status quo. SATC2 doesn’t connect with viewers that way; its parade of luxury and entitlement entices viewers into cultural delusions—escapism—that hip-hop once discouraged.

Jay-Z’s song-narrative includes devastated female dreams—a model-turned-hooker story as crushing as Mulholland Drive and diametrically opposed to Sex and the City’s glibness. Its details are a culmination of Jay-Z’s struggle-records Hard Knock Life and 99 Problems, only this time trouble is seen from the upper hand. His “I’m the new Sinatra” boast is meant to convince himself of triumph and invulnerability but the self-coronation implies a kind of effort Carrie never exhibits. King pretends the opposite, proposing easy materialism and that detestable class fantasy of the white Imperium that Jay-Z and Keys together audaciously contradict.

“Empire State of Mind” updates the kind of immigrant dreams that used to be implicit in New York movies celebrating the go-getter American Dream mecca—from the 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire to Woody Allen’s 1979 Manhattan. Carrie’s opening voice-over vapidly mentions the historic purchase of Manhattan Island for $24 dollars as the fount of gentrified New York lore, but Jay-Z and Keys give their particular race-conscious spin—and it’s culturally evocative.

Keys hits her high notes like homeruns. What do Carrie and friends do? Shop. Consumerism is SATC2’s noxious substitute for personal achievement. Carrie’s confession about moving from a penthouse to a lower floor (“We may be closer to earth but we’ve kept a little bit of heaven”) merely introduces her walk-in closet. And her materialism is not a bit satirical; it’s smug. So is her marital hassling: “Am I a bitch-wife who nags you?” she asks Big. King so completely falsifies modern living he seems unaware the answer is yes. Propagandizing for greed and avarice, King doesn’t recognize that his story and heroine are obnoxious.

Although “Empire State of Mind” salutes New York hegemony, its reality proves Alicia Keys and Jay-Z redesigning and remaking the aspirational mode. Despite performing a ludicrous karaoke to “I Am Woman” (as if rousing the Abu Dhabi tourists to revolt), the SATC girls remain TV-fake. They actually represent an idiotic state of mind.

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Sex and the City 2
Directed by Michael Patrick King
Runtime: 146 min.