Sex and the City and The Best New Year's Eve Movie Scene 

I have been a fan of Sex and the City since around 2010, when I watched an episode on TV with my mum one fateful night where I couldn't sleep. I was probably too young, but most of my media tastes at this point were The Simpsons, horror movies, and obscure British comedies, so sure, what the hell. I believe it was the episode ‘The Power of Female Sex’, where Carrie gets swept up into a life of European opulence and Charlotte has a portrait of her vagina painted by a man who uses the ‘C word’ far more than I thought could occur on American TV. This was a pretty good starter episode, mainly because none of the ladies were tied to particular men yet so it worked in a monster-of-the-week kind of a way. But I digress.

After watching this and feeling like a true grown up, I begged my mum for the full box set - before she relented, she got a copy of the first movie, partially because it's a little tamer than the show. I loved it immediately, not yet aware of the nuance (and dare I say grit) lost from the original run, even though I knew back then that most of the runtime was shallow and silly.

Now, I think that much of the first Sex and the City movie and almost the entirety of Sex and the City 2 are, to paraphrase Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, ‘dog-ass’. Don't even get me started on the rancid follow up And Just Like That, which literally finished its run with an exploding toilet full of shit, a true low point for a media property once associated with Manolo Blahnik and Y2K buoyancy. But in the case of the first film, I say this with love in my heart for lots of choice moments, mainly the montages, which it oddly excels at. These include Carrie's designer wedding dress try-on, organising her life with Jennifer Hudson (the GOAT of the movie), and the scene that has stuck with me like no other from the SATC franchise.

In amongst the frivolity, there sits a bright shining spot about midway through the first movie that consistently makes me tear up a little whenever I see it, and that crystallises the whole thesis of the show for me much more effectively than even the original series' finale. It comes at New Year's Eve, a night with wildly varying returns even by holiday standards. It can be an optimistic glimpse into the future with loving friends and family, a mediocre party where you feel you should be happier than you are, or just another night where you fall asleep before the clock even strikes midnight. If you're reading this, I'm willing to bet that you've experienced all three to some extent throughout your life.

This gamut of experiences is perfectly captured in a 3 minute montage in Sex and the City, flicking between the experiences of all our major players. Charlotte and Harry are having an adorable evening in with their daughter Lily, Samantha and Smith are luxuriating in LA glamour (matching robes included), Big is quietly devastated by loneliness at a swanky dinner, and Stanford and Anthony, upon the arrival of the new year, shrug at each other, down their drinks and kiss - a move that would sadly lead to one of the most ill conceived relationships of the series.

This is all great, and genuinely charming, but the heart of the scene flickers back between two characters who, at this point in the movie, are at the peak of their respective heartbreaks. These are Miranda, spending new years alone in her apartment as a result of Steve cheating, her leaving, and her son spending the night with his dad, and Carrie, slowly healing from Big's jilting of her but uncharacteristically trying to sleep through new years against her party girl nature. Miranda calls Carrie for some company, swiftly apologising and hanging up when she realises she woke her friend. Carrie shuts her eyes, then quickly opens them, kicking off the montage.

Amongst everything else listed, we have gorgeous sequences of Carrie, in a sequin beanie, fur coat, and stiletto heels, prancing her way through the snow covered streets of Manhattan to reach her friend quicker than the subway or a cab ever could on New Years Eve. Intercut between everyone else settled into their evenings, for better or worse, Carrie is rushing to start hers with her closest friend in the series (rewatch it and come back to me if you disagree, it's clearly Miranda). When she finally arrives, the clock has struck 12, and the new year is rang in as her and Miranda embrace as family, Carrie reassuring her with three vital words: ‘you’re not alone'.

The best part of the scene is that it's set to an ethereally beautiful rendition of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ by folk singer Mairi Campbell, sang (as it should be) in the original Scots to great effect. Covering up the city sounds like the blanket of snow that envelops NYC in the montage, this cover is one of my all time favourite soundtrack choices. It's a refreshing change from the contemporary pop that makes up most of the tracklist as a sweet, sincere, classic ode to what can be a complicated time of year for people without a traditional family structure. But even if you don't have kids or a husband to lean on, if you're lucky, you have a good friend or two, and that can often be better.

This moment is also one of the rare times that Carrie is umambiguously a good friend, and that goes a long way. Since the show was added to Netflix a couple of years ago, it's had a resurgence, a with it a new generation of viewers who mainly find Carrie's behaviour deplorable - a far cry from everyone who wanted to be ‘a Carrie’ back when the show aired. She cheats on partners and drastically overspends beyond her means, but audiences are by far the most bothered by her treatment of her friends, which ranges from dismissive and negligent to outright judgemental and cruel.

But these character flaws don't represent Carrie as a whole; the show centres on the friendship between the girls pretty convincingly, and that wouldn't be possible without Carrie genuinely caring. The last episode of the series ends with Carrie surprising her friends at brunch having returned from Paris, but this moment of sisterhood is overshadowed by a call from Big moments earlier revealing his much theorised name. On New Year's Eve, though, the men are totally irrelevant; it's just Carrie, Miranda, and some hot Chinese food after a perilous trek through the cold. It's the best distillation of why these friendships should be valued, and to me it resonates much more than any of the romantic scenes at the movie's close when, of course, the couples inevitably reconcile.

Amid the controversial Steve cheating plot line, Samantha's outrageous 3 pound weight gain, and Charlotte having little to do beyond shitting herself on holiday, Sex and the City quietly holds the most beautiful New Years scene put to film, nestled within the soap opera shenanigans. I regularly rewatch this movie and have done since I was probably much too young to view it - this year won't be an exception.

Hope you all have a wonderful New Years in a few weeks, everyone!