SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK

Name: SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK
Item: SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK
Author: Review

“A Walking Advertisement for Pre-Marital Sex”

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK focuses on the romantic and sexual escapades of three men and three women. Tommy (played by writer/director Edward Burns) meets Maria in a video store after his girlfriend kicks him out of her apartment. Maria has just divorced Ben, who cheated on Maria while they were married. The nerdy, youngish-looking Ben becomes interested in a 19-year-old waitress named Ashley, who’s secretly been seeing a married dentist named Griffin. Griffin is married to Annie, who happens to be the real estate agent trying to find Tommy a new apartment. Although he finds Annie attractive, Tommy tries to pursue Maria, but can never seem to get together with her except for a one-night stand. The movie ends with Tommy waxing philosophically, that the search for love is as important as the finding of it.

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK is an ANNIE HALL wannabe, the Oscar winning movie by Woody Allen about romance and life in New York City, but it is not half as funny, nor as interesting. Although SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK rebukes cheating and especially Ben and Griffin’s adultery, it fails to rebuke the other sexual immorality these characters perform

Content:

(RoRo, PaPa, B, LLL, V, SSS, N, A, D, M) Romantic worldview with solid pagan elements regarding sexual morality, but movie rebukes adultery; at least 85 obscenities, 9 strong profanities & 3 light profanities, plus obscene gestures & talk about sex; light violence such as angry adulterer bangs on his the door of his mistress; briefly depicted fornication, much implied fornication, woman gets pregnant after one-night stand & decides to keep the baby yet can’t bring herself emotionally to tell the father, implied adulterous sex, married man takes mistress to hotel rooms & later hires prostitute, 19-year-old mentions she lost her virginity at 15 to an older married man (which is pedophilia), & much sexual discussion; partial male nudity, but nothing during any sexual activity per se; alcohol use; smoking; and, cheating partially rebuked & adultery rebuked.

More Detail:

SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK is an ANNIE HALL wannabe, the Oscar winning movie by Woody Allen about romance and life in New York City, but it is not half as funny, nor as interesting. The story focuses on the romantic and sexual escapades of three men and three women. Tommy (played by writer/director Edward Burns, who starred in 15 MINUTES and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) meets Maria in a video store after his girlfriend kicks him out of her apartment. Maria has just divorced Ben, who cheated on Maria while they were married. The nerdy, youngish-looking Ben becomes interested in a 19-year-old waitress named Ashley, who’s secretly been seeing a married dentist named Griffin. Griffin is married to Annie, who happens to be the real estate agent trying to find Tommy a new apartment. Although he finds Annie attractive, Tommy tries to pursue Maria, but can never seem to get together with her except for a one-night stand.
Eventually, Ben finds happiness with Ashley, who finally leaves Griffin. Annie divorces Griffin when she gets fed up with his obvious philandering. The movie ends with Tommy waxing philosophically, much like Woody in ANNIE HALL, that the search for love is as important as the finding of it.
Although SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK rebukes cheating and especially Ben and Griffin’s adultery, it fails to rebuke the other sexual immorality these characters perform. In fact, Tommy’s one-time tryst with Maria ends up with her becoming pregnant. Happily, Maria decides to keep the baby, but she can’t bring herself to tell Tommy about the pregnancy. Shame drives Maria to embarrassment, but it also leads her to take this other, equally immoral decision to keep Tommy in the dark.
Ultimately, SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK is a walking advertisement for Paul’s command in 1 Cor. 6:18, “Flee sexual immorality!”