Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is the story of four young women who have been friends all their lives, with a pair of pants that serves as a focal point throughout the film. Directed by Ken Kwapis, the screenplay was written by Delia Ephron and Elizabeth Chandler. The main characters are portrayed by four young actresses who are fairly well-known for their work in other genres and media:

Amber Tamblyn, for example, was the main character in the television series "Joan of Arcadia," America Ferrera was seen in "Real Women Have Curves" and most recently in the hit series "Ugly Betty," and Alexis Bledel in "Sin City" and the TV series "The Gilmore Girls." Blake Lively has, since the "Sisterhood" film, appeared in "Simon Says," and is currently working on "New York, I love you." Interestingly, despite the many misgivings of some reviewers, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" was successful enough to warrant a sequel, which was completed earlier this year (Internet Movie Database, 1990-2008).

The casting of the four characters was particularly well done in terms not only of their acting credits and considerable talent, but also because of the unique elements that each brings to the story. Particularly striking to me personally were Lena (Alexis Bledel) and Tibby (Amber Tamblyn). The reasons for this are multiple. Firstly, I found myself particularly identifying with a younger self recognized in these two characters, and secondly, the intensity of their experiences strongly engaged me in emotional terms.

In terms of setting, the two characters are almost diametrically opposed to each other in the film. Lena visited the most exotically beautiful of the settings: a little Greek island with idyllic white houses framed by blue sea and sky. Tibby on the other hand remains home, working on a documentary film while attempting not to spiritually stagnate in her job in the local convenient store. There are however also parallels. The comfort level of the lives that these characters are used to is changed by two respective meetings. Tibby meets Bailey, and Lena meets Costas, who is to become a love interest. Whereas Tibby's new friend dies, Lena's friend becomes a future love interest, indicating the possibilities of new life. Tibby's life however does not end with the end of Bailey's life, but as a result also becomes renewed, although in a much different way from Lena's.

Bailey's character grates somewhat at the beginning of her interactions with Tibby. She is rude and entirely too strong-willed and abusive for her age. I therefore completely identified with Tibby's initial irritation. However, as their friendship grows, I, like Tibby, came to a better understanding of Bailey's character as one that attempts to fit a lifetime of experiences into the short time that she is given. In the end, I cried with Tibby at the loss of her friend. In this way, Kwapis succeeds in using one of the major characters to manipulate the emotions of the audience in order to reach the final goal of learning and experience for Tibby.

Another reason for my particular identification with Tibby is her apparent separation from her emotions and the ability to express it. This is particularly the case with her pain, which she tends to repress by apparent anger. In this, I recognize my own tendency to do the same, not only when I was younger, but still today to some degree. This is part of the reason I experienced Tibby's emotion at Bailey's death with such intensity.

Like Tibby, Lena also represses a vital part of herself. She appears to be extremely uncomfortable with her physical body. In the clothing shop where they pick up the pants, for example, she balks at the idea of wearing a bikini. I remember particularly wondering why, because she has such a lovely little physique. In Greece, Costas changes her repression into a lovely expression of life and love, which she then uses to overcome the resistance of her Greek family. This was done with a pleasing poetic flair in the film, with chance encounters and just- in-time moments making much of the experience unique.

Another thing I noticed about Lena is the fact that she is the only one of the four friends whose hairstyle appears symbolic of her particular character development. Being repressed physically, her physical self undergoes the changes as she mentally moves from this state to a greater sense of freedom. As she begins to allow herself to love Costas, Lena symbolically "lets down" her hair, and her final departure from the island is free, happy, and filled with love not only from her new encounter, but also from the family who wanted to reject her because of this.

While Tibby is for me representative of my tendency towards emotional repression, Lena represents my physical repression, particularly when I was younger. The two appear to go hand-in-hand: greater emotional freedom results in healthier physical expression, and eventual healing ensues. In intensely opposite settings and with diametrically opposed experiences, Lena and Tibby connect by finding freedom. Lena finds self-expression through gaining love in Greece, while Tibby learns to feel more than anger or depression by losing a friend in her home town.

The other two characters and their experiences did not strike me as strongly as those of Lena and Tibby, but nonetheless also drew an emotional response. I particularly like the way in which Bridget's story unfolds at the end, because it was surprising and sweet. The scene where the friends unite to help Carmen through her father's wedding was also an emotional highlight for me. Once again, there was a pleasing sense of poetic unity to the film.

With so many tear-inducing moments, it is little wonder that some critics have reacted negatively to the film to a greater or lesser degree. One of the most ungenerous reviews is written for the Guardian by Peter Bradshaw (2005), suggesting that the film might be in line for the Nobel Prize for "yuckiness." The reviewer's main problem with the film appears to be that the characters lack depth. Indeed, he refers to them as "quazi-human" and appears to find them entirely unconvincing as four different human beings in their own right. Michael O'Sullivan (2005), on the other hand, finds the characters convincing as individuals, but fails to believe the friendship connecting them. Another problem he points out is the fact that the issue of the pants that somehow fit very different body types perfectly is not as convincing on screen as it is in the novel, in which readers are not confronted with the actual image.

I am however not convinced by such arguments. Instead, my inclination is to agree with authors such as Tim King (2005), who claims that some reviewers do not "get it." The point is not whether the pants can fit each girl with great scientific possibility, or whether the girls have large amounts of things in common to base their friendship upon. It is true that there is rather a shortage of time to develop both the connection between the four and their individual adventures fully and sufficiently to provide the depth searched for by the above reviewers. It is however also true that the film makes admirable use of the time frame it does have available.

What the friendship lacks in initial cinematographic presentation is symbolically compensated for with the continuity of the pants in each scene. It serves as the connecting factor among the friends, and draws parallels between their adventures. A further connecting factor is the fact that each girl develops and changes on a fundamental level, and for the better. While their adventures are completely divergent in terms of specific content, they are nonetheless combined in their effect upon the characters. Lena and Tibby, as mentioned, learn to accept their freedom of expression, while Bridget and Carmen learn to accept themselves and others in a healthy and non-destructive way. These are elements that provide the film with the unity that O'Sullivan and Bradshaw refuse to recognize.

A more legitimate criticism is the above-mentioned element of time, as mentioned by King (2005). While the elements of connection make up for this flaw, it is nonetheless true that there is too little time to bring out the full potential of the story. There are simply too many main characters with too many individual problems. Indeed, this very fact is at the basis of the extremely negative criticism launched by O'Sullivan and particularly Bradshaw. While I do not believe that their criticism is focused at the true problems of the film, one can however recognize that their reviews are not without grounds. Because of the divergence of the four characters, the audience is left with the feeling that each story does not truly come to its deserved conclusion. Nevertheless, the intensely emotional experience of each story makes this rather a relief than a shortcoming, although I feel that Bridget's emotions and story have been somewhat neglected.

On the whole, I believe that the film is a good effort to bring the book to the big screen. Another connecting element among the four stories is the film's episodic structure (Putman, 2005). Kwapis's direction moved the events in the film among the four stories, continually connecting them with the "traveling pants" and the intermittent letters that the characters write to each other. In this way, the distance between the characters and their experiences is narrowed by the physical reality of the pants.

According to Dustin Putman, the episodic structure works because of the exceptional acting performances by the main characters. I would add that the effectiveness of the structure is also related to the nature of the plot. The four characters separate to allow them to grow as human beings. Each episode shows an aspect of this growth. While each girl's experiences are unique and targeted to herself, they are able to share these via the pants that travel among them. Finally, they are united in both the sorrow of death and the joy of matrimony, drawing the four stories to their collective and emotional conclusion.