The bonds of friendship are shown to be both unbreakable and imponderable in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a guaranteed weeper (for mostly the right reasons) in which four teenage friends use a pair of blue jeans as both a bond and an excuse - a glue that holds them together physically and a mandate that keeps them connected emotionally.
Based on Ann Brashares' novel, Pants certainly comes up lacking in the originality department. Each of the four friends suffers from all-too-familiar manifestations of teen angst. Shy Lena (Alexis Bledel) meets a boy able to crack open her shell, only to discover he's Romeo to her Juliet, complete with warring families; brazen Bridget (Blake Lively) longs for both her dead mother and emotionally shut-off father; rebellious Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) defiantly follows her own path, until she meets someone who depends on her; and chubby Carmen (America Ferrera) needs a dad who sees who she is, not what she isn't.
The four girls, all born within a week of each other in Bethesda (although an occasional Maryland Lottery sign pops up, Pants was filmed largely in Vancouver), have been fast friends forever. But they're 16 now, and for the first time, some of them will be spending the summer elsewhere - Lena's staying with her grandparents in Greece, while Bridget hones her All-American athletic skills at a soccer camp in Mexico and Carmen settles in for three months with her father in Charleston.
Only Tibby isn't going anywhere. She'll be working as a stock clerk at the local Wal-Mart clone, saving money so she can buy more video equipment and finish the documentary she's been working on.
Naturally, these four girls couldn't be more different. But their commitment to one another is total. Pants understands that friends don't reflect each other so much as fill in the gaps.
Their bond manifests itself in a pair of magical jeans they chance upon at a clothing store; although the four vary greatly in body shape, the jeans fit each snugly. Knowing a metaphor when they see one, the four pledge to spend the summer wearing them for a week at a time, then mailing them to each other.
And so they're off, Lena to meet a Greek hunk, Bridget a handsome soccer coach, Carmen an extended family she never knew about and Tibby a sidekick who refuses to let her own troubles drag her down.
