Product Description

Join the four best friends as they finish their first year of college and dive into a summer of excitement. Bridget (Blake Lively) journeys to Turkey on an archeological dig. Carmen (America Ferrera) plunges into the hectic, creative world of summer theater in Vermont. Lena (Alexis Bledel) discovers new love and old heartbreak at the Rhode Island School of Design. And in the Big Apple, Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) takes a big step in her relationship with Brian. Romance, laughs, tears and that magical pair of jeans that keeps the girls together even when theyre far apart all here in a heart-lifting second film based on Ann Brashares bestsellers. Its a perfect fit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7854 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-11-18
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Widescreen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 117 minutes

Features

• Join the four best friends as they finish their first year of college and dive into a summer of excitement. Bridget (Blake Lively) journeys to Turkey on an archeological dig. Carmen (America Ferrera) plunges into the hectic, creative world of summer theater in Vermont. Lena (Alexis Bledel) discovers new love and old heartbreak at the Rhode Island School of Design. And in the Big Apple, Tibby (Ambe

Amazon.com
Ever wonder what the girls of Sex and the City might have been like if they'd been friends since toddlerhood? Probably a lot like the appealing friends in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, the winsome sequel to the winning 2005 film based, as is this film, on the novels of Ann Brashares. Tibby, Carmen, Bridget, and Lena are the Carrie, et al., of this yarn, which picks up in the girls' lives as they're launching into womanhood--figuring out "how to become ourselves without losing each other." The young women fight heartache and family trouble while seeking adventure in their first year of college and the summer after--and trading off a pair of what must surely be the best-traveled garment in the history of Hollywood. All the young actresses have become more famous since the first film--especially Ugly Betty Emmy winner America Ferrera (Carmen), but also Blake Lively (Bridget), Amber Tamblyn (Tibby), and Alexis Bleidel (Lena). But the film is very much an ensemble piece as all four young stars trade off their piece in the spotlight. Adventures take them to far-flung locales like Rhode Island, New York, and an archeological dig in Turkey, and the adventures and friendship continue across the miles. Above all? The Sisterhood, of course. Tibby, over lunch: "I suck at relationships. I should have been a guy." Lena: "Nah, a guy wouldn't worry about sucking at relationships." And suddenly, sisters, everything seems right in the world. --A.T. Hurley

Customer Reviews

Friendship is in Their Jeans
The impression that "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" gives is that it's a bubbly, bright, and--for all intents and purposes--meaningless sequel to the first film. To my relief, it follows the example set by its predecessor, a surprisingly levelheaded friendship story. Four years after discovering a magically fitting pair of jeans, best friends Tibby Tomko-Rollins (Amber Tamblyn), Carmen Lowell (America Ferrera), Lena Kaligaris (Alexis Bledel), and Bridget Vreeland (Blake Lively) have returned for a second chapter that remains on perfectly equal ground with the first, focusing on coming-of-age issues like maturity, self-discovery, family, and love. Unoriginal ideas? Maybe so, but that doesn't mean they're any less effective. If anything, they make the film's message that much clearer. It helps that many of the girls' problems are based in reality--high school issues, like being pretty and popular, are pushed aside in favor of adult issues, like pregnancy scares and family crises.

If there's anything we learned from the first film, it's that the magic of the titular jeans was symbolic; by in large, the girls worked through their own ups and downs on their own, with no miraculous intervention other than their friendship with one another. We learn pretty much the same thing in this film, which sees each character facing new, more mature challenges. Let's begin with Carmen, who doubles as the film's bookend narrator. She now attends Yale, working as a stagehand for the theatre department. Her mother (Rachel Ticotin) has since remarried and is now pregnant with her second child. When Carmen's hopes of spending the summer with her friends are dashed, she decides to join a Shakespearian theater company in Vermont with a prima donna named Julia (Rachel Nichols). Once there, a British actor named Ian (Tom Wisdom) coaxes Carmen into auditioning for "A Winter's Tale"; to her shock--and to Julia's horror--she's cast as Perdita. As rehearsals continue, she begins to fall in love with Ian.

Next, there's Bridget, who plays Soccer at Brown University. Lately, her interests have shifted to archeology. While on an expedition in Turkey, her instructor, Professor Nasrin Mehani (Shohreh Aghdashloo), opens her eyes to the fact that she's only running away from her past. Bridget, it seems, is still haunted by the suicide of her mother. And her relationship with her father (Ernie Lively) is worse than ever; before leaving for Turkey, she discovered a box full of letters her grandmother had written her, letters her father wanted to keep hidden. Returning to the United States, Bridget takes a bus to Alabama and finally meets her grandmother, Greta (Blythe Danner), an accommodating woman with a matter-of-fact outlook on everything, including her daughter's mental illness.

The next in line is Tibby, who continues to pursue her filmmaking dreams at NYU. Forced to stay in New York for the summer to rewrite her screenplay, she gets a job at a local video store. She's now dating Brian McBrian (Leonardo Nam), who was introduced in the first film as the "Dragon's Lair" champion. When their relationship is threatened (for reasons I won't reveal), Tibby begins to wonder if she was meant for happiness. She does put up a wall every time she gets close to someone, and that's because, deep down, she believes that those you love the most will eventually abandon you. Her attempts to get sympathy from Carmen are flatly rejected; she doesn't appreciate how uncommunicative Tibby has been all summer.

Finally, there's Lena, who attends an art college in Rhode Island on a scholarship. Heartbroken after breaking up with her Greek boyfriend, Kostos (Michael Rady), she reverts to her old timid ways. She then meets Leo (Jesse Williams), the male model hired to pose nude in her art classes. It isn't long before they fall in love, although we suspect it's for all the wrong reasons. All she really knows about Leo is that he's a nice guy, and he's incredibly handsome. But does she know what she wants out of life? Does she even know who she is? How can know she when she's torn between two men?

Naturally, the pants themselves have to play a part in this story, and indeed, they're continually FedEx-ed from friend to friend. The question is: Do any of them need the pants anymore? You'd think that, at this point, a pair of old jeans traveling the world would reveal itself as a big metaphor. They may realize that by the time the film ends. I'm not entirely sure, though.

Moments of this movie are perhaps a little too sentimental, and the general plot may be a little too formulaic. At times, the dialogue is a bit contrived. Consider this conversation: When Tibby says drearily, "I suck at relationships. I should have been a guy," Lena calmly responds, "A guy wouldn't care about sucking at relationships." Only best friends in a coming-of-age story could get away with lines like that. Then again, I never expected a reinvention of the wheel. Movies like "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2"--and its predecessor--are aimed at a very specific audience, namely teenage girls; if they can get something out of it other than the sight of four young women looking pretty, if they can leave the theater understanding the more complex aspects of the story, then the filmmakers can include all the predictable dialogue they want. I think this movie will get the job done, not merely for teenage girls, but for anyone open to the idea.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants grows up pretty quickly in this sequel
First of all, it is certainly an interesting experience to be the only guy in the theater for a movie like "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2." At least I was not the oldest person there, and while that person was my date at least we could take comfort in knowing that we have both read all four of Ann Brashares' novels about the "Sisterhood," and therefore were entitled to be there with all the young folks. Screenwriter Elizabeth Chandler ("What a Girl Wants") is working mainly from the final book in the series, "Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood," which means that Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) has a pregnancy scare in New York City, Carmen (America Ferrera) is doing a Shakespeare play in Vermont, Bee (Blake Lively) is on a archeological dig in Turkey, and Lena (Alexis Bledel) is drying to figure out how to draw a nude male model. However, some key elements from earlier novels are worked in the story, specifically Lena finding out Kostos is married and Bee meeting her grandmother from "The Second Summer of the Sisterhood," and Carmen's mother having a baby from "Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood" (to be clear, the movie tie-in paperback being published as "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" is the fourth book, "Forever Blue" and not the book about the second summer).

Having read the books can be a key factor in enjoying the movie because things move really quickly and fans of the series will constantly be filling in gaps. The best indication of how fast things move is that when Bee goes to Alabama her grandmother (Blythe Danner) immediately reocgnizes her, so they forgo the entire bit about Bee pretending to be Gilda. The biggest element missing from the final book is Bee's romance in Turkey, but the decision to create a new character, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Professor Nasrin Mehani, is a good move because it places the emphasis on Bee coming to terms with her mother's suicide, which was arguably the most important thing that happened to her in the four books. Additionaly, following Tibby's pregnancy scare with having to be in the delivery room with Carmen's mother added an additional resonance to Tibby's story.

Circumstances have certainly changed for the four actresses since the release of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" three years ago can simply be expressed by noting that when the first movie came out Tamblyn was doing "Joan of Arcadia" and Bledel had "Gilmore Girls," and now those shows are done and Ferrera with "Ugly Betty" and Lively on "Gossip Girl" are currently in the front seat of American pop culture. There was reportedly some reluctance to get the band back together for this second film, but at least everybody got to go to Santorini this time around and watch Bledel freckle. However, the main thing I noticed in this second movie is that Amber Tamblyn is clearly the best actress in the bunch, which is saying something if you have seen Ferrera in "Real Women Have Curves." But this is Tamblyn's movie and most of the best moments (and virtually all of the good lines) belong to her.

The other thing I noticed is that the guys in this movie are all good guys. Brian (Leonardo Nam) is everything Tibby is not, which is exactly what she needs, Ian (Tom Wisdom) is the proverbial Prince Charming for Carmen, and the only downside for Lena choosing between Leo (Jesse Williams) and Kostas (Michael Rady) is that one of the two does not believe there is one person who everybody to love, which is not exactly a deal breaker. The only really villain in the proceedings would be Carmen's supposed friend, Julia (Rachel Nichols), but that just underscores the point that the girl's are in many ways their own worst enemies. Their faults, dear readers, lie in themselves more in than others, and for the Sisterhood actualization truly comes from within. Again, because the film is covering so much, flipping from character to character as the Traveling Pants make their appointed rounds, there is a sense of sketching characters and connecting dots. Not knowing the back stories, which are necessarily reduced to assumptions without the benefit of actual exposition, can put viewers at risk for enjoying this summer of 2008 film. Director Sanaa Hamri made her mark directing music videos, so at least she has an appreciation for having to be concise in her scenes. The net result is not a great film, but certainly a satisfying one for the Sisterhood readership.

A male point of view
I watched this movie as a favor to my wife (she agreed to watch Batman). First of all from a male standpoint, this was definitely a chick flick and I went into it with dread. A story with no car chases, fights, foul language or nudity, how was this going to keep my interest? What you do get is a touching story of 4 young ladies that are life long friends that have moved on and now for the first time are experiencing things on their own for the first time. They each have their own growing pains and find life on their own is more difficult than thought. What ties them together and eventually brings them back together is a pair of pants (see the first movie for more on this). Of course the movie is filled with cliches and is a bit sappy, however at the end of the longest two hours of my life I was still alive and deep down the movie was not as bad as I feared.