Working in a bookstore, I’m usually pretty up on what books are
especially popular with each demographic. Within the young adult
section, very few titles have done so well lately as Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
and its sequels. I didn’t really know much about the book, however,
until the movie came out. Around the same time, my friend read the book,
and she heartily recommended it, and we decided it would be a great
movie to go see together sometime. That “sometime” finally arrived a
couple weeks ago, when the film hit video stores. At a mild PG, it’s a
teen flick that celebrates friendship and family, making it an ideal
pick for sleepovers or family film nights.
When I was in elementary school, I used to read a series of books entitled Friends 4-Ever.
Each volume consisted largely of the correspondences of four friends to
one another. Each of them picked out special stationery and wrote
letters that they signed with clever phrases beginning with “Yours till
the…” This film reminds me of that series with its focus on four
lifelong friends who have been separated from one another but keep one
another close through the mail. But their secret lies not just in
writing to one another. When they find a pair of jeans that mysteriously
fits each of them perfectly, they decide to share the pants, wearing
them for a week before sending them off to the next lucky recipient.
Whoever has the pants will have a little piece of her friends with her,
and they will hopefully bring good fortune.
The girls in
question are Carmen (America Ferrera), Bridget (Blake Lively), Lena
(Alexis Bledel) and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn). The movie is almost four
separate movies as it cuts from one girl to the next, developing four
very different stories. The pants provide a common element, and each of
the girls has at least one voice-over in the form of the letter
accompanying the magical garment.
Carmen, who provides
narration at the beginning of the film in which she introduces us to the
group, is an aspiring writer of Puerto Rican descent. Her father
(Bradley Whitford) left her and her mother six years earlier, and she
has seen him only a few times since, so she is thrilled at the prospect
of spending an entire summer with him in his home. The vacation quickly
turns sour, however, when he surprises her with his new suburban life in
a development – with a new family to go with it. Lydia (Nancy Travis)
and her teenage children, Paul (Kyle Schmid) and Krista (Emily Tennant),
strike Carmen as some sort of eerie Barbie-doll family, particularly
the way-too-perky mother-daughter twosome. Paul, meanwhile, scarcely
says a word throughout her visit. As plans for the upcoming wedding
proceed, Carmen grows more and more uncomfortable, feeling as though she
has been replaced and has no part in this new life her father has
constructed for himself. Of the four stories, hers strikes me as the
most depressing, and though the film leaves us with some resolution, I
couldn’t help but wonder how long it would last.
Bridget is by
far my least favorite of the four, and I wouldn’t have complained if
her part of the film had been excised entirely. Her character never
appealed to me at all until a moment toward the end in which she
reminisces about a treasured moment with her mother, who committed
suicide. (With Tamblyn in the film, I couldn’t help but draw lots of Joan of Arcadia
connections, and I found it interesting that this character’s backstory
was so similar to that of Adam Rove, Joan’s sometime boyfriend, though
the two characters react to their mothers’ suicides in almost opposite
ways.) It seems I should feel sorry for Bridget because of what she’s
been through, but I don’t. I find her actions, particularly at soccer
camp, obnoxious and overbearing, and her friends’ descriptions of her
don’t really seem to match up with what I see on the screen. But she is
loyal to her trio of buddies, and they stand by her when several weeks
of flirtation with soccer coach Eric (Mike Vogel) lead to a gnawing
emptiness that threatens to consume her upon her arrival back home.
Lena, in contrast to Bridget, is a shrinking violet. Sweet and quiet,
she sees her vacation in sun-soaked Greece as an opportunity to spend
quality time with her grandparents, gregarious Yia Yia (Maria
Konstadarou) and taciturn Papou (George Touliatos), and draw idyllic
locales. When hunky, free-spirited Kostos (Michael Rady) takes a shine
to her, she isn’t sure what to make of his affections, particularly when
she learns a Romeo and Juliet-style animosity exists between her
family and his. I would say of the four stories, hers is the happiest,
which was rather gratifying since she reminds me so much of myself. She
also undergoes a significant change in her way of looking at the world
that still leaves her integrity uncompromised.
Aside from a general interest in the story, what really drew me to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
was Amber Tamblyn, particularly after I learned that my favorite show
was axed by Les “Let’s Skew Younger” Moonves. Never mind that a majority
of the major characters in Joan of Arcadia were teenagers…
Anyway, she did a brilliant job on that show, so I was eager to see what
she would be like in this film. Oddly enough, blue-haired,
angsty-documentary-making Tibby’s a lot like Joan: sarcastic, pouty, but
ultimately good-hearted and open to a life-changing encounter with
another individual. While on the surface the friendship she unwittingly
cultivates with an eccentric 12-year-old (Jenna Boyd) is reminiscent of
Joan’s relationship with death-obsessed young Rocky, like God in all his
various forms on the show, young Bailey helps the jaded Tibby to see
the promising possibilities inherent in each individual. Ironically,
though Tibby is the only one of the four to stay home all summer, it is
she who undergoes change at the deepest level, and I found her story
easily the most moving of the four, inspiring and heart-wrenching.
The film celebrates the power of friendship and its ability to endure,
and even be strengthened by, distances. The girls are very different,
and apart from one another they shine in ways they would not have as
part of the group, much as Merry and Pippin come into their own when
they are finally separated from one another for a time in Return of the King.
But when they are reunited, the bond is more solid than ever. There is
very little in this film that could be deemed offensive, and the only
story line that strays ever so subtly into more PG-13 territory is
Bridget’s. Much is left to the viewer’s imagination, however, so there’s
nothing to be particularly concerned about. A fine film for friends,
for mothers and daughters, for anyone looking for a wholesome,
thoughtful movie, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is well worth a trip to the video store.
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