Review: 'Lipstick Jungle' on NBC

Smallscreen Reviews

By April MacIntyre Feb 5, 2008, 18:31 GMT

NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" harkens a bit of "Sex and the City," "Ugly Betty," "Dirty Sexy Money," and "Cashmere Mafia," in an ode to the affluent denizens of New York awash in fashion, female bonding and private school maneuverings. Kim Raver - © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi

Kim Raver - © Glenn Harris / PhotorazziAuthor Candace Bushnell is at the creative core of this series, and her humor from “Sex and the City” has been traded in for more heart and girl-team bonding between the lead actors, Wendy Healy (Brooke Shields), a comely movie executive, Victory Ford (Lindsay Price), a ditzy, sweet fashion designer and Nico O'Reilly (Kim Raver), the steely editor of Bonfire magazine. The other star of the series is New York City herself. The cinematographer lenses the appealing shots with all the best of the Manhattan skyline, retail rows and the Park surrounding the principals' lives.

Healy’s British stay-at-home husband Shane (Paul Blackthorne), is predictably bristling at his house-husband role. His professional life is on hold as Wendy conquers the world. Victory’s surprise suitor is Gazillionaire Joe Bennett (Andrew McCarthy), so rich he delegates his wooing and date making to his assistant, and Nico is quietly suffering in a calcified marriage to a great guy who hung up his sex life a long time ago. Nico’s men are the most interesting so far. Her boss Hector (Julian Sands) tortures her with his conflicting expectations; her co-worker Mike (David Alan Basche) tries to sabotage her professional credibility, and her surprise boytoy flirt, Kirby (Robert Buckley), smells her loneliness and need; he is determined to conquer her.In one of the better scenes in the series seen so far, Kirby determinedly follows an overwhelmed Nico into the ladies room, dominates her physically and rips her stockings open to write his phone number on her thigh. Effective; it was never spied by her academically absorbed husband, and Nico soon succumbs to Kirby’s will.Another great scene features Lorraine Bracco as a Judith Regan editor type who has some damning manuscript that paints Wendy into an unflattering corner. Bracco is terrifically vile.Unlike the other shows with professional women, this one scripts the three in a softer, more relatable dynamic. "Jungle" is a level of girl bonding that feels a tad more believable compared to the scenarios the women in “Sex and the City” were dealt.What will be interesting is how the viewers who are grappling with the worst American economy in recent history will cotton to this series. Credit debt, health insurance woes, foreclosures and the word recession being bandied about, you have to wonder how a show focused on very rich people anguishing over their kids getting in to a certain private school will play in Peoria. Escapist drama with a side of sex and sister solidarity may just pull it off for NBC.Lipstick Jungle premieres this week (Thursday at 10 EST).

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