‘Sex’ sequel boosts gal-pal bonding

(L-r) CYNTHIA NIXON, writer-producer-director MICHAEL PATRICK KING and SARAH JESSICA PARKER on the set of New Line Cinema�s comedy �SEX AND THE CITY 2,� a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Whip up a batch of Cosmos and dust off your Jimmy Choos. The “Sex and the City” foursome are back for another celebration of friendship and fashion.

And it really is a party this time around. No need to think too hard about the movie’s deeper meanings. Unlike the first film — a surprise $415 million blockbuster which tried to balance the sweet and the sour — “Sex and the City 2,” which opens Thursday, May 27, is all about fun in the sun.

Leaving Manhattan in their wake, the gals hit the road to Abu Dhabi for a vacation that’s an exercise in opulence. If you thought Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) lived in high style before, wait until you get a gander at their beyond-first-class treatment in the Middle East.

The Abu Dhabi adventure also serves another purpose: it brings the women even closer together.

“The fact that the girls get to go away allows them to get to a deeper level,” says Davis, 45. “Sometimes when you get out of your own normal day-to-day existence, you get to appreciate and analyze (your life) more. We have this different kind of freedom together in the Middle East, which is ironic, as Sarah Jessica always pointed out.”

Freedom is just what Carrie and company are craving when the movie begins. Two years into her marriage to Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Carrie is reveling in the publication of her new book but also trying to suss out what it means to be committed to one person for the rest of her life. An Abu Dhabi encounter with ex-fiance Aidan (John Corbett) adds some urgency to Carrie’s musings.

“There was a wedding, and now there has to be a marriage, and the two are very different,” says Parker, 45. “I think where Carrie finds herself at the top of the movie is starting, as she typically does, to ask questions about the environment in which she currently lives.”

The big theme of the movie, says Parker, is “tradition and why do we run toward it and why do we push it away.” Sounding like Carrie on a hunt for column ideas, Parker says, “Why would we so willingly want to commit to the institution of marriage? Why then do we find ourselves squirming and asking questions? How do we redefine tradition for ourselves? And what better place to ask all of these questions than the Middle East?”

When “Sex and the City 2” kicks off, Carrie’s pals are also pondering their place in the scheme of things. Charlotte is finding herself overwhelmed by raising two youngsters. Miranda is stuck in a job she’s beginning to hate. And Samantha is trying to figure out how to survive menopause.

Relating to their characters’ journeys was a snap for the actresses.

“Menopause?,” says the 53-year-old Cattrall with a laugh. “I didn’t need to do any research on that one.”

For her part, Nixon says job fatigue goes with the territory of being over 40.

“Miranda has a really terrific job that she’s well-paid for and, all of a sudden she realizes she’s miserable doing it. I can totally relate to that,” says Nixon, 44. “Just kidding, just kidding.”

Parker, who’s been married to Matthew Broderick for 13 years, says it’s a given that women of her generation question the plusses and minuses of being hitched.

“(We) aren’t even conscious of the fact that we’re asking ourselves (these questions),” she notes. “I mean, we’re in the process of redefining our roles all the time. It’s the great gift that our mothers gave us.”

THE LADIES’ LONGEVITY

Through its six-season run on HBO and now its rebirth as a movie franchise, “Sex and the City” has amassed scores of gay fans. Parker thinks she knows why.

“When I talk to people in the gay community, I always hear that the clothing is fun, but that’s just cherry on top of the souffl�,” she notes. “What I really think makes us popular is (our) ability to articulate emotion no matter how embarrassing or candid or intimate. And we also have a humorous way of observing our emotional journeys that a lot of my gay friends really, really love.”

As with the first “Sex and the City” film, the plot for the sequel took root in the imagination of Michael Patrick King, a Scranton native who steered the series since 2000. Following the surprise success of the 2008 film, King was immediately tasked with mapping out a follow-up. Sending the gals to a mecca of conspicuous consumption was at the top of his list.

“We were in the middle of an economic downturn, and I realized that during the Great Depression, the movies’ job was to go on a bit of an escapist’s bend,” King recently told Entertainment Weekly. “So I thought, ‘Let’s take everybody on a big, fun trip. Because I didn’t think people want to see Carrie Bradshaw selling apples under a bridge.”

Initially, King set the movie in Dubai, but when the United Arab Emirates vetoed the production, the action was moved to the neighboring Abu Dubai. As it turns out, Abu Dhabi was no more welcoming to the crew, so the movie was eventually shot in Morocco, which was dressed to look like its desert neighbor.

One of the reasons King decided to set the movie primarily overseas was to try and sneak away from fans and paparazzi. In Morocco, the women could walk around almost unnoticed while still being treated, as Cattrall notes, “like we were royalty.”

If there was a low point for the actresses, it was dealing with a number of surly camels who refused to sit, stand or gallop on cue. “To be on a camel with Kim Cattrall that disobeyed all orders was something I’ll never forget,” says Parker with a laugh.

In Morocco, the cast and crew stuck close together. They stayed in the same hotels and hung out en masse most evenings. It was a new experience for the actresses who, during the show’s New York run, rarely socialized, preferring to go back home to their families instead.

“The most vivid memory I have of this movie is that I got to live with this cast,” says Parker. “We got to know one another in a way we never had the opportunity to do in New York … It changed (our relationship). I just came away loving them more than I ever have before because I got to see them in a new way.”

In Abu Dhabi, the women discovered that, first and foremost, they are never-say-die troupers.

“I mean, nothing could get us down, no matter how hungry we were or how we (didn’t have convenient) bathrooms or how much we missed our families,” says Parker. “It was just incredibly impressive and inspiring and, frankly, it kept us very buoyant, even on tough days.”

Unless “Sex and the City 2” is a flat-out bomb, another sequel seems a certainty. Whether or not the gals ever strap on their Manolo Blahniks again, they’re happy to ponder the woman-empowering legacy of the “Sex and the City” franchise.

“The culture … seems to be moving toward a place where women are really unkind to one another and call each other horrible names, which I find really objectionable,” says Parker. “So, I really, really love how these women love and respect each other.

“They were never made to be friends. Their DNA is so radically different from one to the next, and yet they’ve found this incomparable friendship that’s really, truly inspiring to me and changes the way I think about my own friendships constantly.”

w