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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG (for thematic elements, some sensuality and language) Theater release: June 01, 2005 by Warner Bros. Directed by: Ken Kwapis Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes Cast: (all voices)Amber Rose Tamblyn (Tibby), Alexis Bledel (Lena), Blake Lively (Bridget), America Ferrera (Carmen), Bradley Whitford (Al) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Ask any woman and she'll tell you that the perfect pair of jeans is a thing of wonder and beauty indeed. They can make you feel comfortable, attractive, emboldened, at home. They even have an annoying way of letting you know when you're not taking good enough care of yourself. In other words, the perfect pair of jeans is not so unlike a good friend.

So it seems altogether fitting that when The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' four best friends—Carmen (America Ferrera of Real Women Have Curves), Tibby (Amber Tamblyn of TV's Joan of Arcadia), Lena (Alexis Bledel of TV's The Gilmore Girls), and Bridget (newcomer Blake Lively)—can't be together for an entire summer (their longest stretch apart in their 16 years), they allow a "magical" pair of jeans to link them all together.

Blake Lively, America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel

The jeans are magical because they fit all four of these diverse female bodies—from the tall, athletic Bridget to the voluptuous Puerto Rican, Carmen. And honestly, the fact that they're not fighting over a pair of jeans that makes them all look great from behind is a huge testament to the strength of their friendship.

The sisterhood began even before these four were born. Their moms met in a prenatal aerobics class and gave birth within a week of one another. These young women have shared just about every waking moment since. So the fact that they're parting for the summer—Lena to visit her grandparents in Greece, Bridget to soccer camp in Mexico, Carmen to spend the summer with her dad in South Carolina (he left when she was 10), and Tibby to stay home and work a boring drug-store job to earn money for more video equipment (she's making a documentary)—is a big deal.

On a shopping trip the week before they part, they wander into a thrift shop and all end up trying on the same pair of jeans. Marveling that it fits them all, they buy the pants, and on the eve of their departures host a clandestine farewell ceremony where they christen themselves the sisterhood and lay down the ground rules for the pants—including the fact that they aren't to be washed or double cuffed (tacky!) or taken off by anyone but the wearer.

Lena (Alexis Bledel) tries to find her way in Greece

The pants start their travels with Lena in Greece. Lena is the shy beauty of the bunch, a buttoned-up prude fearful of too much emotion. This reticence is challenged by her boisterous gaggle of Greek relatives, but mostly by Kostos, a dreamy Greek fisherman/college student who also happens to be on the same wrong side as Lena in a long-standing family feud. In his life-loving presence, Lena reluctantly starts to unclench and unwind.

Next stop for the pants is back home to the pierced, blue-haired, snarky Tibby. They're delivered to her house by a precocious 12-year-old named Bailey, who appoints herself Tibby's assistant in the making of a documentary about local lives of quiet desperation (which Tibby lovingly refers to as her "suckumentary"). Tibby initially swats away Bailey's perky overtures of friendship like an annoying gnat, but with her friends gone for the summer and her house overrun by her two toddler siblings, Bailey's relentless enthusiasm is the best thing she's got going.

Amber Tamblyn plays the snarky Tibby, who works a boring drug-store job

The pants next travel to soulful, strong-willed Carmen, who welcomes this much-needed evidence of the familiar as she feels like a freak in "the land of the blondes." The blondes are her father's fiancée and her two kids, new additions he failed to mention before Carmen arrived for the summer. As they all bustle about with wedding plans and forming a new family, Carmen feels more and more invisible.

The pants finally make it to athletic, impulsive Bridget, who's taking part in a soccer camp in a tiny Mexican town. Fresh from her mother's suicide and left only with her emotionally distant father, she's almost textbook as she channels all of her energy on being the best at her sport—and in brazenly winning the affections of Eric, one of the camp counselors.

Due to the vast array of topics the sisters deal with throughout their summer adventures, this is more than just a teen-girl flick. How wonderful to see young women in movies who aren't just obsessed with boys. Lena's fearful desire to be open to love and Carmen's gut-wrenching confrontation with her absentee dad (one of the best scenes in the film) resonate with moviegoers of all ages. (The 40-something guy next to me even sniffled at the latter scene.)

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