Sex and the City

Sex and the City is the romantic comedy feature film adaptation of the HBO comedy series Sex and the City (itself based on the book Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell) about four female friends living in New York City. The series often portrayed frank discussions about romance and sexuality.

PLOT:


Set four years after the events of "An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux", the film begins with Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Big (Chris Noth) viewing apartments with the intention of moving in together. Carrie falls in love with a penthouse suite, which Big immediately agrees to pay for. However, Carrie experiences doubts over the sensibility of this arrangement, explaining that they are not married, and as such she would have no legal rights to their home in the event of a separation. Quelling her worry, Big suggests that they get married.

Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is finding balancing her home, work and social life ever more difficult, and confesses that she hasn’t slept with Steve (David Eigenberg) for six months. She is devastated when Steve reveals he has slept with another woman, and immediately separates from him. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is living with Smith (Jason Lewis), who has a successful television career. They live in L.A., where Samantha is finding it difficult to take time for herself. She is traveling frequently between L.A. and New York, and grappling with her persistent desire for sex with other men. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is happy in her marriage to Harry, with their adopted Chinese daughter, Lily.

Carrie's wedding plans escalate into such a lavish event that Big begins to experience doubts. After an argument with Steve at the rehearsal dinner, Miranda tells Big bluntly that he and Carrie are crazy to be getting married. On the day of the ceremony, he decides he cannot go through with it, and although he changes his mind and returns to the venue, Carrie has already been left humiliated and betrayed. The four women take the honeymoon that Carrie had booked to Mexico, where they de-stress and collect themselves.

On her return to New York, Carrie hires an assistant, Louise (Jennifer Hudson), to help her move back into her old apartment and manage her administration. After reflecting on an argument she has with Carrie, Miranda agrees to attend couples counseling with Steve, and they are eventually able to reconcile. Samantha begins overeating to keep her from cheating on Smith, but eventually realizes that their relationship is simply not working, and that she needs to put herself first. The two break up, and she moves back to New York. Charlotte falls pregnant and is delighted, although for several months is concerned that something might happen to the baby, as her life seems to be too perfect.

A surprise encounter with Big leaves Charlotte so furious she goes into labor. Big delivers her to the hospital, and waits until baby Rose is born, hoping to see Carrie. Harry passes on the message that Big would like her to call him, and that he has written to her frequently, but never received a reply. Carrie searches her correspondence, before realizing that Louise has kept his emails password-protected from her, after she earlier announced she wished to sever all communication with him. She finds that he has sent her dozens of letters copied from a book she showed him in the weeks before their wedding, "Love Letters of Great Men", culminating with one of his own where he apologizes for screwing it up and promises to love her forever.

One hour before the locks are due to be changed on their shared apartment, Carrie travels to the home Big had bought for them to collect a pair of shoes she had left there. She finds Big in the walk-in closet he had built for her, and the moment she sees him, her anger at his betrayal dissipates. She runs into his arms and they share a passionate kiss. After spending the final hour in their apartment together, talking and apologizing to one another, Big proposes to Carrie properly, using one of her shoes in place of a ring. They later marry alone, in a simple wedding in New York City Hall, followed by a get-together at a local diner with friends. The movie ends with the four women around a table in a restaurant celebrating Samantha's fiftieth birthday, and making a toast to the next fifty.

The Happening

The film opens in New York's Central Park, when people suddenly fall into a strange trance and begin committing suicide. The signs are 1. Memory loss 2. Disorientation 3. Suicide. The phenomenon spreads to other areas; in New York, construction workers throw themselves off buildings while, in Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia, a string of people kill themselves with a police officer's gun.

Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), is teaching science class in Philadelphia when the principal ends classes due to reports of an apparent bioterrorist attack on New York. Elliot and his distant wife, Alma Moore (Zooey Deschanel), join Elliot's best friend and fellow teacher, Julian (John Leguizamo), and his eight year old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) as they decide to leave the city. There are obvious problems in Elliot's and Alma's marriage, due to the fact that they fight before the train leaves and decide to sit in different compartments. The train they take soon stops at a small town in western Pennsylvania; train services are discontinued after the crew loses contact with "everyone." News begins to come through televisions and cell phones as the pandemic is shown spreading across the northeastern United States. The initial assumption of terrorism is abandoned as the scale of the attacks grows beyond the capabilities of any known terrorist group. The train abandonees take refuge in a small diner where they watch the TV for news on the attacks. A woman is sent a movie on her iPhone of a man feeding himself to Lions at a Zoo. Right after this, they find that the "attacks" have hit Princeton, where Julian's wife is currently shopping.

As people try to flee from the affected area, Julian joins a group heading to Princeton, hoping to find his wife. He leaves his daughter, Jess, in the care of Elliot and Alma. Julian then gives her a picture of her parents and promises he'll be back. Soon, he and the group he's joined enter Princeton, to find many bodies hanging from trees. A woman in the car panics, and Julian tries to calm her down by telling her math problems (he believes that percentages are comforting). However, he looks at the ceiling of the Jeep to find a small slit in the vinyl. Suddenly the car stops, and then drives full force into a tree. Two of the front passangers are thrown through the windshield, but Julian survives. Dizzily, he steps out of the car and slits his wrists with shards of glass.

Meanwhile, Elliot, Alma, and Jess manage to hitchhike with a botanist and his wife; the man explains his theory that plants are attacking people as a defense mechanism. He elaborates on the complex mechanisms that often seem to appear spontaneously, involve strategies such as attracting predators to kill off specific threats and foster communication between different species of plants. Eventually, Elliot and the group come to a crossroads and meet a soldier, Pvt. Auster, who reports that he has come from a military installation that was already affected. From the other roads came more fleeing vehicles; the drivers report that they have been from an affected area. All the cars stop and the people huddle in a group, scared to leave the spot.

Auster takes charge and advises the group to split into two: those who are ready to move out and those who still have to fetch or gather things. As the phenomenon occurs in smaller and smaller populations, both groups are advised to stay away from the roads and travel by foot to less populated areas. Elliot, Alma and Jess are ready to go, as well as two young teens some adults and younger children.

As the wind blows through the fields, Auster's larger group soon succumbs to the phenomenon, killing themselves using the soldier's pistol. Elliot, assessing the situation as a scientific experiment, realizes that the phenomenon is caused by an airborne neurotoxin. The number of people present in an area determines whether a group of people are to be considered a threat. Elliot makes the group split into three smaller ones with Elliot, Alma, Jess and two teenage boys staying together.

After a while, they come across a house in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. Elliot riffles though the desk drawer to find a map while Alma takes Jess to pee and the boys explore the house. Soon enough, Elliot realizes that everything in the house is fake, including the plants. As he wanders into the dining room, Alma and Jess return and they're set to leave. As they leave the house they notice a large group of people running towards the home. The smaller group makes a run for it, but Elliot watches in horror from a nearby hill as a man starts up a large lawnmower, then lies under it.

Elliot's group make their way toward a community, which they hope is so small that it will not trigger a release of the toxin. They come to a house where a group of individuals are holed up, still believing the phenomenon to be a terrorist attack. Jess announces she's hungry and they beg for food. But when the boys try to make an forced entry, they are shot to death. Alma and Elliot follow Jess from the house to avoid being shot themselves.

Elliot, Alma and Jess next come across the house of an elderly woman, who lives in complete isolation, thus, she is ignorant of the pandemic. Though she allows them to stay, she proves to be a harsh host and a paranoid woman. In the evening, she shrewdly asks Elliot if they are planning on murdering or stealing from her. In the morning, Elliot finds himself alone; going downstairs, he hears the voices of Alma and Jess but cannot find them. He inadvertently enters a room and is yelled at by the old woman who accuses him of stealing and demands that they leave immediately.

The woman storms out of the house into the garden when the wind begins blowing once more. Realizing that the neurotoxin release is triggered by even individual people, Elliot closes the door and windows of the house. The woman, on the other hand, roams around the house and eventually kills herself by smashing her head into the walls and windows of her own house. Fleeing from the windows that have been smashed open, Elliot finds himself in a room where he can hear Alma and Jess. He finds a speaking tube, which leads to a shed outside the house. Conversing with his wife, he says that he would want nothing more than to be with her. As the three leave their shelters, the pandemic suddenly subsides and they remain unaffected.

Three months later, Elliot and pregnant Alma have adjusted to a new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. On television, environmentalists are warning that the pandemic may only have been a warning, a rash that precedes an infection. Elliot takes Jess to the bus stop while Alma stays at home, timing a home pregnancy test. When he returns, Alma greets him with a smile and baby news.

In the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, civilians fell into a strange trance. A man keeps repeating that he must take his bicycle home before he goes to a party. He and others start killing themselves. The pandemic has spread.