The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants (film) - Plot

Plot

Four teenage girls — Lena, Tibby, Bridget, and Carmen — are best friends from Bethesda, Maryland, who are about to separate for the summer for the first time in their lives. Lena is spending the summer in Greece with her grandparents; Tibby is staying at home; Bridget is going to soccer camp in Mexico; and Carmen is visiting her father in South Carolina. On one of their final days shopping together, the girls find a seemingly ordinary pair of jeans that fit them all perfectly and flatter their figures, despite their very different measurements. The girls dub them the Traveling Pants and decide to share them equally over the course of the summer. They part the next day, and the film focuses on each girl's journey separately.

Lena Kaligaris

Through the unexpected intervention of the Pants, Lena meets a boy named Kostos Dounas, a Greek-American like her. Lena learns from her grandparents that her family and Kostos' family are sworn enemies stemming from an old family feud. Despite this, Kostos continues to pursue Lena, and the two develop feelings for each other. Lena holds back, though, until one day when she admits to herself that she is afraid of love. Once she makes this realization, she begins a secret relationship with Kostos. On their last night together, Kostos tells Lena that he loves her. Before Lena can answer, Lena's family barges in, angrily pulling her away. Lena later confronts her grandfather and asks to go see Kostos before he leaves, to which her grandfather agrees. Kostos and Lena share a passionate kiss, and Lena confesses her love for him.

Tibby Rollins

While on the job at a Wallmart store, Tibby hears a loud crashing sound, and finds a young girl who has fainted in the deodorant aisle. She frantically calls for help, and the girl is taken away in an ambulance with Tibby.

Fascinated by Tibby's movie, or "suckumentary" as she calls it, Bailey becomes Tibby's self-appointed assistant. Tibby is annoyed by this at first, but gradually grows to accept Bailey. She later learns from Bailey's mother that Bailey has leukemia.

Bailey eventually goes to the hospital with a bad infection. Tibby avoids the hospital for a while, but eventually visits Bailey, bringing the Traveling Pants. She offers them to Bailey and pleads with her to take them so that they can help her. Bailey responds by saying that the pants have already worked their magic on Bailey by bringing her and Tibby together. Tibby spends a lot of time with Bailey in the hospital after that. A couple of days later, Tibby receives a phone call in the morning from Mrs. Graffman, Bailey's mother, saying that Bailey died in the night.

When Carmen comes back home from South Carolina, Tibby visits her to try and help her with her feelings of being snubbed by her father. Carmen lashes out at Tibby by saying that she has no feelings, and Tibby leaves in tears. The pair reconcile, and later go to Bridget's house in order to bring her out of her depression.

Over the course of the movie, Tibby undergoes dramatic changes in her outlook due to her time with Bailey.

Bridget Vreeland

Shortly after arriving at soccer camp in Baja California, Mexico, Bridget develops a crush on one of the coaches, Eric Richman. She reveals to Eric and the audience that a psychiatrist who evaluated her following her mother's suicide described her as "single-minded to the point of recklessness," presumably as a way of avoiding dealing with her mother's death. This statement aptly describes Bridget's pursuit of Eric, despite the fact that flings between coaches and campers are forbidden. She flirts with Eric and shows off for him during games.

When Bridget's turn with the Traveling Pants finally comes, she puts them on that night and walks around outside Eric's cabin, leading him to the beach. It is implied in the movie (and confirmed in the book) that Bridget loses her virginity to Eric. The event leaves Bridget feeling empty and listless, even after she returns home. After learning about this in a letter, Lena calls Carmen and Tibby, and they arrive at Bridget's house to cheer her up. She tells them she is worried she is like her mother, whose mood also swung easily from very up to very down, eventually resulting in deep depression and suicide. Carmen and Tibby comfort Bridget by reassuring her that she is stronger than her mother. Eric visits Bridget and apologizes for his behavior over the summer, and tells her that while she is too young for him now, he hopes she will give him a shot when she is older, giving Bridget much-needed closure.

Carmen Lowell

During the summer, Carmen goes to her dad's house in South Carolina. On arrival, she is shocked when her dad immediately introduces her to a new family that he is about to marry into; they are blonde White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, unlike Carmen who was raised by her Puerto Rican mother. During her time there, her father and her new family neglect her emotionally, driving her to throw a stone through their dining room window, and catch a bus back to Maryland. At home she tells Tibby about her time with her dad and Tibby convinces her to confront her father with a phone call and finally tell him that she's mad at him. Carmen tells her father and he apologizes. Her summer ends with the four of them returning south where she is an attendant at her father's wedding, where at the reception he makes a public apology for having snubbed her.