Sex And The City 2 might be the film of the moment on everybody’s lips but director Noel Clarke believes his new British film 4.3.2.1, which is also about four strong-minded women, is the perfect alternative for both men and women.
The Bafta Award winner, who penned Kidulthood and directed Adulthood, was inspired to take on this new project and prove that a white man shouldn’t be constricted from writing about black characters, a gay man shouldn’t feel constricted from writing about a straight man and similarly, a man shouldn’t be constricted from creating female characters.
Noel explains the experiences he drew upon to relate to his female characters: “I was raised by my mum, just my mum - I liked to think she was a strong woman, particularly now that I have a kid myself and I see how tough it is with two of us raising him.
“So for me, it was more about writing the people as strong people. And if you have strong people, it shouldn’t really matter whether they are men or women.”
The film follows four college girlfriends who meet in a London coffee shop to celebrate the sending off of one of the group to New York where she is planning a romantic liaison with a guy she has met online.
However, as the girls part company outside, a brief encounter with a gang of rude boys triggers a dangerous chain of events, beginning in Amsterdam with the theft of a consignment of diamonds.
Noel added: “It is just about their lives and how they go from being young girls to strong women.
“There is a load for the girls in there, a good alternative to Sex And The City, ours is probably better, and there is a lot for the boys in there as well.
St Trinian's star Tamsin Egerton was one of the first of the four girls to be cast in the film, a part she said she snapped up in an instant.
“It is a strong female cast and those kinds of scripts come along very rarely. It is young, it is not just wimpy girls that are crying into their pillows. It is girls who have a story, they have issues, really serious life issues that people can feel for and empathise with and relate to.”
“These girls do, in a very short period of time, have to grow up and become women very quickly."
She added: “Often, the mistake is, when the writer thinks of writing a female part, it is always the weaker, damsel in distress and sometimes, you don’t have to, you can write a male part and just turn it into a female and it doesn’t change.”
Catch 4.3.2.1 in cinema’s from June 2
