June 1, 2005

I wasn’t sure if I should watch THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS for this series, wasn’t sure if I’d get anything out of it, and certainly I don’t know how to go into as much detail about a movie like this as I do the ones about some sort of punching or slashing. But, you know, it’s a drama aimed at young women, based on a popular young adult novel, not the sort of thing I pay attention to, and yet it was enough of a phenomenon that we’ve all heard of it. It got a sequel, its cast went on to bigger things, it is notable. Now, I won’t go into detail about questions like did I find myself producing tears at certain parts, or did I not do that… I mean, who’s to say, really? There are many different perspectives, and what relevance does that have anyway. We don’t need to get into that. Let’s stick to the movie. Come on guys stop clowning around.

If you’re like me and didn’t really know exactly what this was, here’s the deal. Four girls in Bethesda, Maryland have been best friends since birth (because their mothers met in an aerobics class for pregnant women). As teenagers Lena (Alexis Bledel, SIN CITY), Bridget (Blake Lively in her first major role), Carmen (America Ferrera, REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES) and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn, THE RING) are about to spend their first ever summer apart, due to various vacation plans. On their last shopping trip together before parting ways they find a pair of used jeans that have the magical quality of fitting perfectly on each of them despite their very different body sizes. Then they break into the abandoned studio where their moms had that class (just go with it) and do a little ritual where they come up with rules for how to share and respect the pants.

Lena, an artist, goes to a picturesque fishing village on the Greek island of Santorini to visit her grandparents and meet a whole bunch of cousins. Due to lusty gawking while working on a drawing on a pier she falls in the water and hooks the jeans underwater, nearly drowning, before being rescued by hunky fisherman Kostas (newcomer Michael Rady). She’s instantly smitten, but when she mentions his name to her grandmother (Maria Konstandarou) she finds out there’s a bitter feud between the families and she ends up spending her vacation in a Romeo and Juliet forbidden love type scenario.

Bridget attends a soccer camp in Baja California, Mexico, which to her disappointment is only for girls. But she gets a crush on one of the coaches, Eric (Mike Vogel, the guy who gets hung on the meat hook in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2003). He goes to Columbia, she’s 17, and relationships with coaches are obviously against the rules, but she pursues him, sexy dances with him at the cantina, and (thanks to the magic power of the pants) loses her virginity to him on the beach. (See also THE INKWELL and AYITI MON AMOUR.) At the end of the movie she realizes she was acting out because of the death of her mother and Eric apologizes for having had (illegal?) sex with her, but asks her to “give him a chance” when she turns twenty. In the context of the movie she was very much in control and he genuinely isn’t grooming her, but I think we can still put this in the “things from a popular 2005 movie that absolutely would not fly today” column.

I found Carmen’s story to be one of the most compelling. She goes to South Carolina to visit her dad, Al (Bradley Whitford, ROBOCOP 3), who she doesn’t see regularly. He pulls the absolute dipshit move of surprising her that he now lives with a girlfriend she’s never heard about named Lydia (Nancy Travis, DESTINY TURNS ON THE RADIO) and her kids Paul (Kyle Schmid, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) and Krista (Emily Tennant, I, ROBOT) and is about to get remarried. Carmen tries to remain calm and go along with it but Lydia is very insensitive about things like her Spanish speaking and wanting to share Puerto Rican cuisine. Then Carmen feels humiliated when they try on bridesmaid dresses at a shop that doesn’t know how to deal with her body type. This leads to an outburst where she unloads about how they’ve been treating her, and it’s an interesting precursor to Ferrera’s famous monologue in BARBIE about being a woman. In another even more heartbreaking scene she calls her dad and breaks down asking why he has so much more time for his white stepkids than his biological daughter, and all he can do is keep saying “I’m sorry.”

The other best story is about Tibby, who does not go on a vacation that summer. She stays home, works as a stocker at Walman’s (I think based on Walmart, not Walgreen’s), and in her spare time is trying to make a documentary. She’s a sullen teen, as emphasized by the blue streak in her hair, her nose ring and her constant pouting. One day at work some little kids are giving her shit, and then when of them has a medical emergency that she helps with, receiving no appreciation for it. Later she learns that the girl, Bailey (Jenna Boyd, THE HUNTED), is her neighbor, and when Bailey finds out she makes movies she tries to become her assistant.

It’s hard to imagine how this footage they’re making will cut together – they interview a guy who’s good at playing Dragon’s Lair (Leonardo Nam, THE PERFECT SCORE) and one of Tibby’s co-workers about random stuff, and Bailey records narration live while filming. They’re not exactly the Maysles Brothers, but it’s cute to see two generations of young people being enthusiastic about making documentaries.

Tibby’s is very much a teen girl story, but it also reminds me so much of themes I love in stories about masculinity: being a grouch whose seemingly cold heart opens up due to friendship with a young innocent, being someone who pretends not to be emotional but finally can’t handle it anymore and blurts it out and it’s beautiful. I guess we’re all more alike than we think. Tibby is very slow to admitting how much she likes spending time with Bailey, but then she finds out the kid has leukemia. Oh jesus TRAVELING PANTS movie are you really doing this to me? You’re really gonna go there? Yeah, but it doesn’t feel treacly to me. It’s got a light touch for a movie from the director of DUNSTON CHECKS IN.

At some point I thought “Wait a minute, what’s going on with those traveling pants?” I forgot to pay attention to who was wearing them when. But they have an agreement to wear them for one week (and never wash them, they make clear!) and then mail them to each other. Later in the movie it starts being important who has them since they attribute good luck to them, but the pants don’t have as much screen time as I had pictured.

The sisterhood itself is also less central than I expected, since they’re separate for most of the movie, but in the end they come together and try to be there for each other. You know, having the Avengers apart for a while makes it more exciting when they assemble.

The soundtrack features mostly mellow rock tunes, including “Always There in You” by Valli Girls (a group featuring two of the Haim sisters before HAIM), “Simple” by Katy Perry (her first song after her Christian rock debut album) and “Closer to You” by Brandi Carlile (from her first album, which hadn’t even come out yet).

THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS is directed by Ken Kwapis, whose excellent Sesame Street picture FOLLOW THAT BIRD (1985) I reviewed in a previous summer retrospective. He’s also a big TV guy who had been directing and producing Malcolm in the Middle and The Bernie Mac Show for several years at this point and was about to strike gold directing the pilot of The Office.

As I mentioned, this is based on a 2001 book by Ann Brashares, which had become a trilogy by this point (and has since had two more sequels and a spin-off). It was adapted by Delia Ephron (sister of Nora, pseudonymous screenwriter of BRENDA STARR) and Elizabeth Chandler (A LITTLE PRINCESS). I noticed that one of the producers is Denise Di Novi, whose name I know from HEATHERS and half a dozen Tim Burton movies. This is one of her many movies based on books by female authors, which include two versions of LITTLE WOMEN.

Obviously the movie did well, it was well reviewed, the cast reportedly became good friends, they are talking about doing a part 3 (based on book 5). I get the feeling it is a treasured movie for people who saw it at a certain age and also it’s decent if you did not.

Well, there it is, I kind of like THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS, we’ll see if I watch part 2 or not. I assume the pants have to lose their powers at some point or perhaps fall into the wrong, uh, legs I guess you would say? Or there is a shocking revelation about their past. Opens with a flashback to the previous wearer. There are many possibilities I guess. No spoilers please.

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Legacy: Amber Tamblyn was already known for starring in Joan of Arcadia at the time, but she continues to act in movies and television and has published several books of poetry and criticism. It’s easy to think of America Ferrera as mainly a TV actress, since I first knew her name as the title character in four seasons of Ugly Betty, and more recently she did six seasons of Superstore, but of course she got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for BARBIE (2023). Lately we mostly hear about Blake Lively in a gossip/celebrity news context because of her ongoing lawsuits with a co-star she accused of sexual harassment, plus her marriage to Ryan Reynolds and friendship with Taylor Swift, instead of her actual work. But she’s a brilliant actress who I’ve enjoyed in THE TOWN, SAVAGES, THE SHALLOWS, A SIMPLE FAVOR and THE RHYTHM SECTION. Alexis Bledel hasn’t drastically escaped being known mainly for her show Gilmore Girls, and secondarily for this, but she continues to work and had a main role in four seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale. Bradley Whitford was well known for The West Wing at that time but has since made a mark in movies including THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, THE POST, and of course GET OUT.