“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” (Warner Brothers)
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” is the movie Sandra Bullock’s “Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood” wanted to be. It has four superior actresses bonding together to tell the tale of four high school girls who spend their summer apart. Each gets a separate place to occupy her time and a pair of magical pants somehow forms the segue between the stories.
Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Blake Lively play the four girls and each them is amazing. Tamblyn (“Joan of Arcadia”) and Bledel (“The Gilmore Girls”) are the best known but Ferrera is a rising star on the Disney Channel and Lively won’t be unknown long. She is a coltish beauty who can also act.
The hook of the film is a “magical” pair of jeans that somehow fits all four of the girls and they are not of equal sizes. The four then decide to pass the pants around during the summer while they are apart. Each gets to keep the jeans for a certain number of days and then send them to the next girl.
Tibby (Tamblyn) is the only one of the four who stays home for the summer. She passes her days working at a Wal-Mart type store and her late afternoons and nights filming a documentary. Over the course of the summer she picks up an assistant, a young girl named Bailey (Jenna Boyd) who wears Tibby down with her persistence.
Lena (Bledel) spends her summer in the Greek Isles visiting her grandparents. She also finds love when she accidentally meets a young man named Kostas (Michael Rady). They are attracted at first sight and things go swimmingly, until her grandparents find out about him. Then they forbid her to see him.
Carmen (Ferrera) goes to South Carolina to visit her Dad (Bradley Whitford). There she discovers he is getting married to a woman (Nancy Travis) with a ready-made family. This adds to Carmen’s sense of insecurity concerning her father.
Bridget (Lively) has recently lost her mother, and she and her father have trouble communicating. She spends her summer at a soccer camp in Mexico and immediately throws herself at one of the coaches (Mike Vogel). Bridget is so desperate to be loved she will take it wherever she can find it.
Each of these stories is interesting and each of them entertains. But none would spark the entertainment value they do without the unique skills of the four actresses. Together or individually they are stunning. This movie is to be savored and the sequel (and surely there will be one – or two) is to be highly anticipated.
“Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” is not a movie for everyone. young men will probably find it a bit too much of a chick flick. Still those males who wander in or are dragged in by their wives, girlfriends, etc may find they enjoy it more than they thought they would.
“Sisterhood” is an emotional, enjoyable film. It sets four young actresses on the road to stardom and provides plenty of entertainment along the way. This one is a winner.
I scored “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” a journeying jeans 8 out of 10.
