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In Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, we met four high school coeds, best of friends dedicated to one another. Temporarily, circumstances would separate them geographically, so to maintain their bond, they decided to share a pair of jeans that have the magical quality of fitting each perfectly. That’s no mean feat considering that the girls’ figures vary from the tall and shapely to the short and plump. These odd pants have one other special attribute; they seem to bring the wearer great luck. The film ended with the girls’ graduation, and with college looming, further separations would be unavoidable.

This sequel picks up where the first film left off. Carmen Lowell (America Ferrera) is the narrator. In a bit of introductory exposition, she brings us up to date. Tibby Tomko-Rollins (Amber Tamblyn) is studying film at NYU. Athletic Bridget Vreeland (Blake Lively) just made the soccer team at Brown. Artistic Lena Kaligaris (Alexis Bledel) is on full scholarship at Rhode Island School of Design. And Carmen is attending the most prestigious school of the four, Yale.

Each of the young women has life issues and each will spend the summer between college semesters doing her own thing, coming away from the experiences with a little self-discovery. Although they don’t spend much time together, they continue to call, email, text message, write, and pass around that very special pair of pants.

Tibby is in a relationship with a boyfriend, seems unable to commit to her feelings, but goes to bed with him anyway. She will have a scare that will threaten to further isolate her emotionally; the viewer is left with the impression that she fears rejection and hurt. She has the most mundane problems of the four.

Bridget carries with her the pain of her mother’s suicide and the apparent abandonment of her maternal grandmother. Each left an emotional hole that she compensates for with impulsive behavior, a patina of fearlessness, and a very outgoing personality.

Lena pines away for the young man she fell in love with on Santorini the year before, but when the death of her grandfather brings her back for a funeral, she discovers that he’s married and his bride is pregnant. She returns to the States with a broken heart.

Carmen has the most debilitating problem: low self-esteem. She isn’t dating and avoids social situations where she fears being ignored. She assumes subordinate roles. We find her working behind the scenes during a student stage production, a dresser for tall, slender Julia (Rachel Nichols), a budding actress with long, straight Gwyneth Paltro hair. Her choice of staying behind the scenes is indicative of her wanting to fade into the background. Her previously single mom, with whom she’s had a very close relationship, has remarried, is very pregnant, and is in the process of moving to a new home. Carmen feels deserted both by friends who are off on their summer adventures and by her mother who seems to care more for her new family than for her daughter. Carmen decides to accept Julia’s offer to join her for a student drama workshop in Vermont, where Julia can further refine her stage skills and Carmen might be able to help out backstage.

Lena takes a summer course in figure painting and becomes involved with the male model. They have a clichéd cute meet, while he’s posing nude for the class. Bridget discovers that her father had hidden years’ worth of letters from her maternal grandmother and, letters in hand, she storms away to join a summer archeological dig. After reading the letters and being guided by a surrogate mother in the form of the dig site’s director (Shohreh Aghdashloo), Bridget returns to the States, but not to her home; she unexpectedly drops in on her grandmother (Blythe Danner) in Alabama. Tibby simply deals with her relationship crisis, acting out as a remarkably hostile video store clerk, eventually finding a maturity that overcomes her fears. Carmen stumbles into both a relationship and an opportunity that will transform her. And for reasons that will not be revealed here, all the friends travel to Santorini for some quality time, interfering with Lena’s life.
 
The film is structured to cut rotationally from one woman to another, telling just enough of each story to register as a complete thought before moving on. The locations are appealing and sometimes downright intriguing. The film (and Blu-ray Disc) perfectly captures the beauty of Santorini and the quirkiness of the donkey rides that take visitors from the sea to the iconic cliffs (and carefully avoids revealing the swift and clean cable car ride that parallels the stepped path usually covered in donkey droppings).

The script is full of romantic clichés and predictable situations, and in the hands of lesser actresses, the material could have imploded. But all four young performers are appealing, sincere, bright, and emotionally vulnerable. Kyle MacLachlan is great fun as demanding and theatrically charming director of the summer workshop in Vermont. Blythe Danner projects just the right balance of initial resentment, feeling like she’d been abandoned by her granddaughter, and unconditional love as she eventually reveals all about her daughter, Bridget’s mom. I enjoyed Shohreh Aghdashloo’s role for her wisdom, perception, and intelligence. Rachel Nichols effectively portrays another form of insecurity; she insincerely befriends someone who’s short and plump, someone who represents no competition and makes the tall blond look even more appealing by comparison. She will reveal her true colors.

The pants still figure prominently in the fates of the four young women. The jeans still have their magic, but their ultimate fate casts doubt on the potential for further sequels in this series. Perhaps it’s just as well. I’d hate to think that as these talented and bright women become more successful and so sophisticated that they’d transform into the self-involved and judgmental quartet of Sex and the City.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s presented in a fine high definition transfer compressed with the VC-1 video CODEC. The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 has been expanded slightly to fill the 1.78:1 HD frame. As I’ve found on all too many Warner Home Video Blu-ray Discs, small object detail and finely gained textures are merely modest. This is most evident in the weaves of fabrics and skin textures; they aren’t as revealing as the best BDs. I also noticed some occasional, low amplitude halos on edges of high contrast. The rest of the video characteristics are very good. Natural flesh tones and vivid primary colors speak well of color accuracy. Santorini, with its stark white structures against a startling blue sea look great, without a hint of white crush. The video dynamic range is excellent, with little to no black crush and fine shadow detail. I must concede that for a film of this genre, the transfer is more than adequate.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The lossless TrueHD 5.1 sounds lovely, with a pleasing transparency that satisfies. Please note that the disc will default to lossy Dolby Digital 5.1, so a visit to the audio menu is required. However, this is predominantly a dialog-driven film, and as such, the surrounds remains virtually silent. Even audience applause in a theater scene is anchored firmly in the front speakers. Sound effects simply serve the onscreen action. Deep bass isn’t present, nor is it needed. The voices are very natural, with pleasing timbre that doesn’t quite come up to the level of in-the-room presence. The audio content that fares best is the orchestral score by Rachel Portman; it’s presented with persuasive fidelity but confined to the front of the theater.

The optional subtitles are in English SDH, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Behind the Story: Go Jump Off a Cliff featurette (4:25, 1.78:1, HD) takes place in Santorini and is a short EPK-level promotional piece. The director and key players all take a turn in front of the camera. Much is made of how only Alexis Bledel was given the opportunity to visit Santorini during the filming of the first feature. That is corrected in the sequel. And we learn that an iconic Santorini moment was essentially a last minute addition, almost an adlib suggested by the actresses.

The Gag Reel (4:05, 1.78:1, HD) neither made me laugh nor gag. It would have been better named The Smile Reel.

Additional Footage (8:29, 1.78:1, HD) is the collection of deleted scenes. Each is introduced by director Sanaa Hamri, who explains the nature of the scene and why it was cut. She seems to like them all and had to make the sacrifices to accommodate a reasonable runtime.

And the film comes with a Digital Copy DVD for portable viewing.

The 119-minute film is organized into sixteen chapters.

Final Thoughts

This is a pleasant, emotionally satisfying little film that would be an excellent date movie or a great way of justifying to your significant other all that money you spent on home theater gear. The Blu-ray Disc sports a modest video presentation, a modest audio presentation, and limited supplements.