Cinema Hype

Remember 2005, when Amber Tamblyn was talking to God, America Ferrara was somehow not famous, Blake Lively was Gossip-free, and Alexis Bledel got the “…and Alexis Bledel” treatment? How these girls have grown. Suddenly, Tamblyn’s flirting with Lifetime Movie territory (but we love her and her politics anyway), Ferrara gets awards practically for waking up in the morning, Lively’s super-hot, and, well, Bledel still gets the final-name perk. The second Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie seems to take all of this into account—these girls are actors now, apparently, and this go-round treats them like actual adults with actual skills, and (surprise!) it’s a better movie for it.

The series has grown up with the actors, and it’s just as well. This second movie is more even-tempered than the first, with less intense highs (nothing to match Ferrara’s pitch-perfect phone freak-out from the first one) but, more importantly, a corresponding drop in the number of cringey moments. Elizabeth Chandler’s script picks and chooses storylines from each of the last three novels and provides each girl with a reasonably thoughtful (though meandering) arc—it’s like a best-of reel for girly coming-of-age stories, but in a way that doesn’t feel preachy or even all that predictable. Onscreen, everybody has something to do, and nobody is obviously overburdened—Lively, in particular, gets the award for Most Improved, and Ferrara works her usual magic in giving definition to an overly subtle arc. Bledel gets to play shy—a lock for her, after seven seasons as Rory Gilmore, occasional Queen of the Awkward—and Tamblyn is delightfully sardonic, which is just as she should be (plus, she pulls off some fairly risky costumes, including a Rosalind Russell wig). It’s all good fun and, if we’re being all girlfriendly-honest, it’s the kind of movie you might enjoy with some girlfriends without drinking something mildly alcoholic beforehand. So, a step up from last time.

The difficulty of addressing four separate characters’ solo arcs is a little apparent, but it’s hard to tell whether the chop factor is due to careless writing or directing. Our four heroines spend most of the movie apart, and each girl’s got plenty of story to get through; in places, the succession of short scenes and lack of logical transitions gets tiresome. On the other hand, the scenes where the Sisterhood are together have a real rapport (far more so than in the first movie)—somewhere along the line, these girls learned to like each other, or at least to look like they do, and they easily provide the kind of girlfriendly wish fulfillment the movie’s producers are hoping for. The ending is lovely (thoughtfully provided by the source material; thanks, Ann Brashares!)—unexpected and bittersweet, and just what you’d hope for the end of the series. It all comes out in the wash, as the characters and their stories combine, and the heart is there, even when the finesse isn’t. And in the end, isn’t it the heart that matters?

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrara, Amber Tamblyn, Blake Lively, Ann Brashares, movie reviews, young-adult movies, chick flicks, Elizabeth Chandler