There is no shortage of girl-starpower fueling the “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” about four best girlfriends who find a pair of jeans that miraculously fit each of them perfectly and makes magic happen in their lives–or wait, this sequel is less about the pants. But I’ll get back to that in a sec.
Blake Lively of “Gossip Girl” as Bridget. Check.
America Ferrera of “Ugly Betty” as Carmen. Check.
Alexis Bledel of “Gilmore Girls” as Lena. Check.
Amber Tamblyn of “Joan of Arcadia” as Tibby. Check.
What makes “Sisterhood 2″ bearable is the talent and appeal of these four young, beautiful actresses, who really do light up the screen and take a rather weak, repeat of a storyline–they go to four separate summer job locations while in college and hope the pants will keep them together–and turns it into something interesting, fun, and at times, moving.
What “Sisterhood” loses this time around, however, is the sense of the miraculous around the pants.
One of the things I loved most about the idea for this story is the ritual and significance that develop around the pair of jeans between these four friends. In a fun, lighthearted way, the pants become what the famous scholar of religion Mircea Eliade called a “hierophany.” A hierophany can be anything–a rock, a body of water, a story. But in this object or tale or place, we discover the sacred, we imbue the sacred. So the hierophany becomes a sacred object around which we build ritual, that we revere, that we experience as a window into the sacred, the divine, the miraculous.
In the most wonderful, playful way, that’s what the Sisterhood story is about. Four best friends experience this pair of jeans in all of the above ways, complete with ritual, reverence, and the belief that the pants are so sacred, that when you wear them miracles can happen.
Not so with “Sisterhood 2.” This sequel is all about how boring the pants eventually get, how they have no more (or very few) miracles left to deliver, and how–surprise, surprise!–who really needs the pants, anyway? The girls express how, in the end, they’re too old to really believe in the pants anymore.
So what does this say in a larger sense about the sacred and our belief in miracles and the stuff of faith? That eventually we all get too old for it?
I hope not. So about the second movie overall: it’s lovely to watch four lovely actresses for a couple of hours. There’s no vulgarity. There’s nothing objectionable. But there’s no thing miraculous about it either. Oh well.
