Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon. Rated 18A.

Love is a Louis Vuitton handbag. No, wait. Love is a pair of Manolo Blahnik stiletto pumps. A Vivienne Westwood wedding dress that resembles a cream puff crossed with a parade float? Or, hey, maybe love is a Manhattan-magnificent penthouse apartment with Mr. Big.

If you don’t know who Mr. Big is, rap yourself on the noggin with a Jimmy Choo shoe. Fans of the label-licious, chick-powered former HBO television series Sex and the City are, natch, giddily fluent in its lingo of urban love, designer-fabulous outfits, cosmopolitans, and, yes, that man with no name. And, true to its cheekily sexy, often poignant, always glamorous small-screen self, the movie of the Continuing Exploits of Carrie Bradshaw, Her Three Best Friends, and Her Shoe Closet should make those fans pretty giddy.

It’s been four years since we last saw the impossibly petite, impossibly well-dressed New York newspaper columnist and her girl posse. In quickie flashbacks, writer-director Michael Patrick King, doing the same gig here as for the TV show, gives us the goods. The notoriously on-again/off-again relationship of smart, angsty Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and mysterious billionaire-financier Mr. Big (Chris Noth) is so on they’re apartment-hunting. Meanwhile, sex-monkey Samantha (Kim Cattrall), fertility-compromised-yet-bubbly Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and tough-lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) are with various husbands and boy toys, with an adopted child and a temptingly naked neighbour tossed in.

It wouldn’t be fair to spoil any of the sex in this City. It’s really kind of a slim-plotted, super-sized TV show (that happens to look great on the big screen), but isn’t that the point? So let’s just say that along with the Prada you’ll get Carrie’s musing narration, relationship woes, a wedding, that juicy, funny girl talk—one of the best-written aspects of both small- and big-screen versions—surprising poignancy, love, and, yes, sex.

SATC doesn’t pretend time hasn’t passed—there are pointed references to “old” and “new” New York City and one of the “girls” even celebrates her fiftieth birthday—but the four perfectly attuned leads act like they don’t give a damn about age. Cattrall gets the snappiest one-liners (and, next to Parker, the richest story line), but everyone wears those deliciously over-the-top outfits with playful pizzazz. Oh, and listen up for Mr. Big’s real name.