The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

The best part of the movie was when they showed the Harry Potter preview beforehand.

Actually, all snide remarks aside, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was pretty well done; however, it is not surprisingly targeted for a very specific audience. Fortunately enough for this viewer, it wasn’t completely insipid or dripping with estrogen-charged emotions, but I still wouldn’t recommend it to those of you who lack double X-chromosomes.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants follows the stories of four 16-17 year-old best girlfriends, facing their first embarkments into adulthood and blah blah blah. Lena (Alexis Bledel) travels to Greece, where she lives with her grandparents and meets a Romeo-esque lad from a hated rival family. Bridget (Blake Lively) is supposedly 17 but looks about 22. Oh, and she goes to a soccer camp in Mexico for the summer and meets a hot guy or something. This was by far the most annoying and pointless storyline, but I digress. Carmen (America Ferrera) goes off to spend the summer with her mostly absent father who is about to re-marry, and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) stays at home to work in a local drugstore and film a documentary about people who are losers. On the eve of their separation, they find a magical pair of blue jeans that defies all physical law in fitting each of them perfectly. They convene their own Ya-Ya Sisterhood meeting replete with candles and rules for the newfound sisterhood, one of them being that each girl keeps the jeans for two weeks and then sends it on to the next, in the hopes that the jeans will bring good fortune.

In all honesty, I found myself pretty invested in the storylines, with the exception of Bridget’s soccer camp experiences. I found her story to be rather pointless and at the same time ridiculous, as she seduces a 20-something soccer coach over the course of the summer. Maybe I just have a really hard time accepting that a 17-year old could be so confident as to be outrageously forward and undeterred after repeated rejections. Furthermore, I defy anyone to find a man who will search the countryside to find some girl with whom he had a cheap fling simply to tell her that, “it was my fault, sorry. Can we still be friends?” Especially with, you know, the jail time involved for sleeping with someone under 18.

Nevertheless, I must admit that the movie was, as I said, well done. The acting is great, and the movie shifts from story to story fairly quickly, therefore preventing the audience from getting bored with any of them. Despite a few absurdly improbable scenes, it was easy to become absorbed in the characters and their respective development over the course of the film. There were some serious themes and, I confess, some very touching moments, so I do highly recommend Sisterhood. But again, probably only if you fall within the target audience.