"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2": Time with old friends is well spent

"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" is a sweet movie about four nice girls, their cute boyfriends and a pair of magic jeans that are, mysteriously, never too small. Unfortunately, the demographic for this movie just might be a little shrunken.

Though its main characters are now college women, it's hard to imagine that many real-life women their age would be drawn to another "Traveling Pants" saga. (Two 19-year-olds I consulted giggled at the very idea, then went back to discussing "The Dark Knight.") And the parents of the tweens who might be its natural constituency may be concerned about a movie in which a character deals with — sensitively and realistically — a pregnancy scare.

But they'll be missing a likable movie that ultimately confirms the importance of women's friendship; like "Sex and the City," but without most of the sex and designer labels. Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Carmen (America Ferrera), Bridget (Blake Lively) and Lena (Alexis Bledel), now a year post-high-school, are scattered to different colleges and summer destinations. But they stay connected by mailing those well-traveled pants to and fro, and by remembering how, despite the inevitable spats, teenage friends can mean everything to each other.

Mildly Goth-ish Tibby, the budding filmmaker, gets the most grown-up story line this time; she and her boyfriend, Brian (Leonardo Nam), struggle with their feelings after an intimate encounter leads to unexpected questions. Bridget, the athletic one with the wild mane of blond hair that she flings around like a personal flag, comes to terms with questions about her late mother and her past, with help from a little-known grandmother (Blythe Danner).

Lena, the budding artist whose family appears to have cornered the market on frequent-flier trips to Greece, is torn between a handsome art-school model (Jesse Williams) and her first love, Kostos (Michael Rady). And earnest Carmen, feeling a bit lost, spends the summer at a theater program where she unleashes her inner actress, learns some Shakespeare, deals with a temperamental director (Kyle McLachlan, gleefully hamming it up) and meets a charmingly articulate British actor (Tom Wisdom) with whom she idyllically rehearses lines on sun-dappled fields.

Director Sanaa Hamri and screenwriter Elizabeth Chandler (working from Ann Brashares' popular book series) interweave all these stories deftly, though the balance at times seems a bit too careful. (Did the four actresses' agents demand equal screen time, to the minute?) A final sequence set in Greece brings back "Mamma Mia!" memories (there's a moment, with Lena under a picturesque full moon, when I would have bet money that she was about to sing "Knowing Me, Knowing You") and closes the story on a note of happy unity.

The characters are all appealing — particularly Ferrera's wry, sweetly self-conscious Carmen — and the actresses easily make us believe in the bonds that tie this quartet of friends. In a summer full of noise at the multiplex, this tearjerking tale of teenage traveling trousers makes its own quiet charm.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725

or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com