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BY ALICIA POTTER
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One pair of jeans that flatters four different asses? That’s the initial magic of the eponymous thrift-shop threads, until they mystically connect the 16-year-olds who share them during a summer of separation. Ken Kwapis’s middling film stays true to the fanciful aspects of Ann Brashares’s best-selling young-adult novel, which digs deep into the inner lives of the outwardly stereotypical best friends. But here rebellious Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), prim Lena (Alexis Bledel), reckless Bridget (Blake Lively), and expressive Carmen (America Ferrera) are quartered into flat teen versions of the Sex in the City gals. Kwapis strains to follow each character’s narrative and, at his most desperate, resorts to clumsy montages and unintentionally funny segues, like cutting from Bridget saying adiós to her virginity on the beaches of Baja (a vague transaction) to Lena dripping spoonfuls of honey as she moons over a dopy Adonis (Michael Rady) in Greece. By the time each actress has worked her climactic moping/yelling/crying scene, the drama has become shrill and overwrought, though Ferrera (Real Women Have Curves) is a standout. Unlike the peripatetic pants, this awkward jump from page to screen is a less-than-perfect fit. At the Apple Valley, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Providence Place 16, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas. (120 minutes)
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