I Couldn't Help but Wonder

Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) picks up four years after the final episode of Sex and the City's sixth televised season and focuses on the lead up to Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mr Big's (Chris Noth) wedding and the events that follow. In an early and somewhat atypical scene, Carrie and Big are tightly framed in bed together, reading. Carrie reads a book entitled ‘Love Letters of Great Men’ which is a focal point of the scene. Mr Big (in what fans recognize as true Big fashion), questions Carrie's choice of reading material and dismisses the letter as an outdated way to express/confess love: ‘It's not my style. Besides, those guys had to write. They were separated from their loves by wars and hundreds and hundreds of miles. I’m right here’. Fast forward to the film's conclusion. Mr Big, having failed to show up to the pair's high-profile wedding, can only achieve forgiveness and resolution through this same book of famous love letters, which he borrows in an attempt to reconnect with Carrie. The letters ultimately become the catalyst for Carrie's forgiveness.

Mr Big's narrative arc sets the scene for the two key ideas that will be explored in this chapter. The first idea concerns the epistolary subtext that attributes an emotional component to Mr Big that has been famously lacking throughout the franchise's six seasons. These borrowed love letters allow Big to tap into an intimate, more emotional side that is pivotal in Carrie's decision to forgive him.