What is love? Why is it so hard to find, and when you find it, why can it be so painful to hold on to? Carrie Bradshaw admitted that she moved to New York to find love, and after twenty years of searching, she finally found her fairytale happy ending. At least, that’s what she thought.

Sex and the City: The Movie tells the extended tale of the hugely successful TV series in which four independent, glamorous best friends work their way through life and love together. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), the label-loving, designer-shoe-wearing New York writer, is now 40 and in a steady and happy relationship with the love of her life, Mr Big (Chris Noth). After deciding to live together, the couple take things a step further and, in a very business-like fashion, decide to get married. It seems that Carrie has everything her heart desired: she has found the perfect partner, the perfect apartment, the perfect closet, and the perfect wedding dress. Unfortunately, her ‘happily ever after’ is wrecked as Big fails to make the commitment, leaving Carrie broken-hearted in the cruellest possible way.

Her three loyal friends step in, surrounding her with the care, support and affection she needs. The supreme value of these friendships is strongly demonstrated throughout. True friendship, as the film says, ‘never goes out of style’. The women are a constant support and joy to one another when nothing else is. They love and care for each other, and are always on hand to pick up the pieces when romance fails them.

Carrie is not the only one to suffer a broken heart. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), the married but career–focused mother of one, faces the gut-wrenching pain of broken trust when her husband sleeps with another woman. For both Carrie and Miranda, the romantic relationships they valued and invested in most seem ruined, and they are left devastated. Miranda tearfully exclaims to her husband Steve, ‘You broke us; what we had is broken’.

Both women decide that there is no way back, that the love they had for their partners is forever ruined. ‘It’s the cheating part, the behind-my-back part, the violation of the trust, that’s what’s killing me,’ Miranda laments.

The film explores what constitutes true love as, over many lunch dates, the women work through how real love is characterised by commitment, faithfulness and trust. There is, however, a dynamic of real love that both Carrie and Miranda have yet to learn: the self-sacrificial art of forgiveness. Initially, neither can face it. ‘I can barely even look at him’ (Miranda). As time goes by, though, the shock of both betrayals subsides, and the pain they are left with shows them how much they still love their men. But how can either of them move past the events that caused them such heart-rending pain?

It’s only when the friendship between Miranda and Carrie is fractured that they both discover the real place and value of forgiveness. Miranda comes clean to Carrie about a conversation she had with Big the day before his wedding, which may or may not have had an effect on its outcome. Carrie is furious, and the two previously undivided friends are separated by hurt and pain in a way never before experienced in their friendship. Miranda pursues Carrie and tearfully asks for the thing she cannot seem to offer herself.

Miranda: ‘You have to forgive me.’
Carrie: ‘You badger me to forgive you in three days and you won’t even consider forgiving Steve for something he did six months ago.’
Miranda: ‘It’s not the same thing.’
Carrie: ‘Its forgiveness.’

Forgiveness is an act or decision to no longer hold against someone a resentment caused by a wrongdoing, to pardon them and treat them as though it never happened. It’s hard, it’s complicated and it takes time. Forgiveness requires sacrifice, and this is never more clearly demonstrated than in the context of loving relationships. The love that Carrie and Miranda have as friends goes deeper than the wounds that separated them. And so, with Miranda’s plea for forgiveness comes reconciliation and, with their friendship restored, the two women re-examine their romantic heartaches and are able to take steps forward that they never before thought possible.

Sex and the City here touches on issues perhaps deeper than previously explored in the TV series: the real nature of love. It is not expressed in self-serving, but in self-sacrifice. It seeks happiness, security and worth, not in what we get, but in what can be mutually experienced, in trust and a deep commitment. In the end, the film also touches on the value of marriage, acknowledging the for-better-for-worse part of the vows as vital, rather than looking simply at what we receive from marriage or viewing it as a disposable excuse for a party.

Forgiving those we love most is harder than anything else because it feels as though the love that characterised the relationship is damaged. However, it is that love which allows us to take the steps forward and choose to forgive. What distinguishes real love, then, is its self-sacrificial nature displayed in forgiveness. It places the love shared as of deeper significance than the hurt experienced.

As a Christian watching this film, I could not help but think of the greatest example of self- sacrificial love ever shown. The Bible talks clearly about the person of Jesus Christ stepping down to earth from heaven and taking on himself the punishment for the things we each have done wrong, the punishment we ourselves deserve. He sacrificed his life to gain a forgiveness for us that we could never achieve ourselves, thus allowing us to be made right with God by trusting in him. And Christ’s motivation in it all? Real Love. They may not realise it but the love that Carrie and Miranda share is a reflection, albeit a pale one, of the love that Christ has for a humanity that doesn’t deserve it.




This article was first published on Damaris' Culturewatch website (www.culturewatch.org) - used with permission.
© Copyright Becca Cockram (2008)