The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)June 6th, 2005
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
Rating: 3 out of 4
Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Jenna Boyd
Screenplay: Delia Ephron, Elizabeth Chandler (based on the novel by Ann Brashares)
MPAA Classification: PG (thematic elements, some sensuality and language)
The best films about teenagers are, of course, the ones that tell it straight. When we're made to dance around the facts and ignore reality, a film leaves us unsatisfied. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, for the most part, avoids this fault. And although it may sometimes sweeten the image up a bit, its stories touch on topics that may be taboo in an adolescent's household and give them the reality they deserve, making the hormonally rampant teenager that's hidden in every single one of us leap for joy.
The film follows the travels of a very special pair of blue jeans. Four friends, Carmen, Lena, Bridget, and Tibby, who've been inseparable since their simultaneous births, are hanging out one day in the beginning of their Summer vacation when they stumble upon a pair of pants that miraculously fit every single one of them despite their varying body types. Seeing this as a sign, the four decide to create a sisterhood surrounding the jeans, agreeing to allow each member one week in the pants before sending it off to occupy the life of the next sister in queue. You see, the four are separating for the Summer. Bridget, the wildly confident and beautiful soccer player, is heading off to Mexico for a "campo del futbol." Carmen, also the narrator of the film, is traveling to South Carolina to visit her father who left her when she was ten. Lena, the shy sister, is flying to Greece to stay with family, and finally, Tibby, the rebel, is stuck at home, wasting her days working in a Wal-Mart knock-off store Wallmans and making what she calls a "suckumentary", documenting the desperate lives of the store's employees. As in all sisterhoods, a manifesto of rules goes along with the pants. For instance, one of the ten rules is "do not wash the jeans, for the magic may be washed away with it." Another is "do not let anybody but the wearer of the jeans remove the jeans (meaning boys)." You get the idea. And as each of these 16-17 year old young women live out their adventures at their respective locales, we're made witness to their happenings by way of the traveling pants.
Sisterhood is based off of a wildly popular line of books of the same title by Anne Brashares. Having never read the books (surprise, surprise) I can't really say how accurate this adaptation is. However, I can infer that most, if not all, of the young teenage girls that were fans of the books will undoubtedly be fans of the movie. It's simply "that sort of film." I predict that Sisterhood will be 2005's Mean Girls.
Also interesting about the film is its array of young actresses. All of them, excluding Alexis Bledel whose stardom has just recently begun with Gilmore Girls, are relative unknowns. That doesn't mean, however, that their performances will also go unknown. Each of the leads in Sisterhood play their parts tremendously well. They honor the impressive screenplay by giving it the bouncy youthfulness that it needs.
But why is it that the most affective and realistic of films about teenagers are so explicit that teenagers aren't actually allowed to see them? Is that telling parents something? For instance, my absolute favorite teenage drama is 2003's Sundance hit Thirteen. Starring Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter, Thirteen chronicled the spiraled downfall of a thirteen year old girl who experienced what many teenagers actually experience in the real world. So why is it that Thirteen was rated R? If the reality of teenagers is too explicit for a rating fit for teenagers, then where's the problem? What I'm getting at is that teenagers are crazy. I would know, I happen to be one at the moment. For a film about teenager-hood to succeed, it needs to capture this craziness. Sisterhood essentially does well at this, but admittedly pulls some punches.
This conservative aspect can be primarily blamed on the fact that the target demographic for Sisterhood isn't the age of the characters in the story. The target demographic is the12-14 year old adolescent girl who will soon be faced with the challenges presented in Sisterhood's story. This is essentially where the film fails and, at the same time, where it succeeds.
Its success lies in its courage to focus the stories of the characters on problems that many teenagers experience. Sisterhood touches on split families, first love, virginity, vanity, finding an identity, and the dilemma of life and death, to name a few. It fails in that the material surrounding these problems must be fit for what the MPAA believes 12-14 year old girls should see. And along with the rating limits, the stories must also play out simplistically, adhering to formula so the common 12-14 year old girl will feel right at home. So what we get are heartfelt but slightly conservative and formulaic stories about the real issues of teenage girls. But what saves Sisterhood from only appealing to its target demographic is its unbelievable sweetness. The stories are told with such sincerity and heart that it's difficult to find fault in them.
-Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
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