The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Being a middle-aged man, I'd never heard of the young-adult novels in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series until they were made into a couple of movies. And, being a middle-aged man, I didn't go to see either movie in a theater, not relishing the prospect of looking like some sort of predator amidst a crowd of teen-aged girls. But with home video no one need know one's sins, and this weekend I rented both the initial film and its sequel (inelegantly titled The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2). The films are aimed squarely at girls from about ten to twenty years of age, but as these things go they weren't bad.

The first film was directed by Ken Kwapis, and the premise is laid out quickly: four sixteen-year-old girls, who are friends from birth, are out shopping when they find a pair of vintage jeans that somehow fit them all perfectly, even though they are of different sizes. The girls are facing separation in the summer, so they hatch a plan to circulate the jeans, with each girl having them for one week. Lena (Alexis Bledel), a shy, uptight and delicate girl, will be spending the summer with her grandparents on the Greek island of Santorini. Bridget (Blake Lively), bold, blonde and beautiful, but also suffering from the effects of losing her mother to suicide, is attending a soccer camp in Mexico. Carmen (America Ferrera), a zaftig girl who is half Puerto-Rican, is visiting her father, but she is dismayed to learn that he is going to marry a woman who has two children of her own. Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), a rebellious girl interested in making films, is stuck at home for the summer, working at a store like Wal-Mart.

Each girl learns a lesson in a kind of bland, Afterschool Special sort of way. Lena has a Romeo and Juliet-style romance with a Greek boy, Bridget chases after a cute soccer coach, Carmen feels alienated from her father's new family, and Tibby has her cynicism about life challenged when she meets a younger girl who is dying of leukemia. The latter story is the only one I thought that had any power, with Tamblyn giving an excellent performance as the kind of girl who has blue streaks in her hair and hates her existence, but is confronted with a situation that requires her to examine her own feelings.

The second film, directed by Sanaa Hamri, is a little darker. Though it uses the exact same pattern, it is more complex, and examines how childhood friends inevitably drift apart. For this outing the girls are all in college. Lena is taking a summer course at art school, and, after having her heart broken by the Greek boy, is attracted to a fellow artist and figure model. Bridget goes on an archaeological dig in Turkey and is inspired to try to get to know her grandmother. Carmen attends a summer theater program in Vermont and serendipitously gets cast in a production of Shakespeare, and Tibby, a film student at NYU, gets a pregnancy scare when she sleeps with her boyfriend and the condom breaks.

One thing that is notable about these two films is that they are about teen-aged girls but they are not about back-stabbing, queen bees, or bullying. The friendships between the girls are honest and admirable, and as such are quite refreshing. Though the films aren't any great shakes as drama, they are certainly laudable and worthwhile for girls to watch as the kind of thing that can be learned from. I was amused, though, and how easy it is for the girls to move around the country. At one point Tibby, in New York, calls Lena and asks her to get her a pregnancy test. Lena, though, is in Providence. Undaunted, she makes the three-hour drive lickety-split. Then, at the end of the film, all the girls end up back in Santorini (these sections are gorgeous--I hope I get there some day). This is all explained by one of the girls saying that her new stepfather had a ton of frequent flier miles. Are frequent flier miles so easily transferable?