Last month on a visit to India, I spent a couple days in the state of Kerala, which is the setting for a new movie, Before the Rains.

My attempt to see the film back home in Washington was thwarted when the theater said that the movie was “broken.” I’m not sure what that meant, but it forced me to make another choice.

So, I decided to take in a Sunday matinee of Sex and the City. I knew it was having a big opening weekend because one of the larger theaters in the Washington region was 75 percent full—on a gorgeous afternoon.

Most of the audience was composed of young women in their teens, 20s and 30s. They seemed to be bonding over the romantic and sartorial trials and travails of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends.

As the 2½-hour flick meandered along, I couldn’t help but wonder: What kind of message about women in the workplace is Sex and the City sending?

I know that summer movies are supposed to offer an escape from reality, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be completely divorced from reality.

Only one of the four protagonists, Miranda, has a demanding job. The Manhattan attorney talks about the difficulties of balancing motherhood and work. But rather than elevate her, the challenges turn her into a shrew.

As she flits about writing books and the occasional magazine piece, Carrie never seems to be bothered by pesky deadlines. She spends most of her time pining away for Big and admiring shoes that she wouldn’t be able to afford in real life.

Charlotte is a full-time mom. When she’s not looking after her daughter, Lilly, in their massive Fifth Avenue condo, she’s jogging in Central Park. The lifestyle is financed by her lawyer husband.

And Samantha has moved to Los Angeles to build her public relations career around her boyfriend/meal ticket Smith Jarrod. Samantha laments that she utters the Hollywood hunk’s name more than her own in a typical day. Well, Samantha, that’s how the PR world works. The client comes first. 

One premise of Sex seems to be that happiness revolves around finding a rich husband or boyfriend. That’s an attitude right out of the 1950s.

At one of their frequent brunches, Carrie and her friends should discuss why these turn-of-the-century hipsters can’t manage to be as progressive as Mary Richards, the iconic television producer portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore in the eponymous 1970s hit sitcom.

Mary relished “making it on her own” and carving a career niche amongst the chauvinists at WJM-TV in Minneapolis. She has a lot more in common with many in the Washington movie theater audience than Carrie Bradshaw does.

It’s likely that a number of the Washington women were headed to jobs on Monday morning that involved writing or influencing legislation. That’s hard work in the crucible of the nation’s capital. They don’t have time to shop over the lunch hour—if they take lunch at all.

Perhaps some of them deal with measures that will increase workplace flexibility and allow more women to exercise Miranda’s choice to have a career and a family. Flexibility is an increasingly hot issue that is drawing bipartisan support.

Democrats have introduced bills that would compel companies to discuss with employees work schedule modifications that could help them manage demands at home. Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow workers to take overtime compensation in the form of paid time off.

You won’t find these issues mentioned in Sex and the City, because the film was written by Hollywood scribes rather than policy wonks. If the latter had put it together, it would have been blander than it already is.

As I was leaving the theater in a throng of galpals, it occurred to me that there was one important question Sex and the City doesn’t answer: How does Carrie pay for her wardrobe?