More 145;Sex146; for the City?

Desperate fans snapped photos of the empty directors8217; chairs. 8220;Can I sit down?8221; a tourist from Italy pleaded. 8220;Just for a moment8212;a picture for my friends.8221; A publicist obliged. Teetering on enormously high heels while looking way too glam for daytime were Samantha Kim Cattrall, in a red gown with plunging deacute;colletage, Miranda Cynthia Nixon, in a slim royal-blue sheath, Charlotte Kristin Davis, architectural black and finally Carrie Sarah Jessica Parker in a poufy, off-white confection by Vivienne Westwood.

When Sex and the City, the movie, began shooting in New York this fall, the sight of its stars was both commonplace and traffic-stopping. Gawker.com cattily called it 8220;The Most Important Movie Ever Filmed in New York.8221;

A warning to anyone who has not obsessively followed coverage of the film. There may be spoilers ahead. Despite the nearly constant presence of cameras and the obvious visual cues Parker8217;s wedding dress; Davis in a pregnancy belly, the filmmakers have taken pains to mask the plot from ravenous fans.

8220;They really aren8217;t hearing the dialogue,8221; Michael Patrick King, screenwriter and director, said. 8220;They don8217;t know how the characters interact.8221;

When last we left our heroines, they seemed ready to put toxic bachelors and randy Manhattan nights behind them.

8220;That sort of wanton lust, it8217;s just not at the surface of their skin anymore,8221; Parker said. 8220;What8217;s important to me is that Carrie8217;s making a serious attempt at making grown-up decisions about love and life choices.8221;

The characters8217; ageing will also determine the way they interact with the city because 8220;32-year-olds go out and get drunk and sleep with inappropriate men in bars downtown,8221; King said. 8220;And 42-year-old girls maybe don8217;t. In the series we chased the minutiae of being single, the turn of a rejection phrase. The movie has those details, but they8217;re not as obsessive. When you8217;re four single girls sitting around a coffee shop, you have the luxury of time, and when you8217;re a little bit more grown up, it8217;s a luxury just to talk.8221;

There8217;s also the way the gals look: Parker began fittings in August for her 80 or so costume changes. 8220;We would get clothes for, like, four hours, and then there would be someone from Yves Saint Laurent standing there and stripping me of them and taking them back,8221; Parker said.

Parker is a hands-on producer 8220;I like that I feel responsible for people,8221; she said, but she also is actressy enough that she doesn8217;t watch dailies, though she did make sure there were softening filters on the camera lenses. Wrinkles here are scarce, in real life and on screen.

A Sex and the City movie was in the works immediately after the series ended but was scuttled when Cattrall wouldn8217;t agree to appear. 8220;What was scary about doing a movie is that we left on such a high note,8221; she said, 8220;If we were going to go back into it, money was definitely a factor.8221;

As a lauded theatre actress, did Cynthia Nixon even miss playing Miranda? 8220;I did miss her,8221; she said. 8220;I missed the fictional people. I missed the real people. I missed the day-to-day of shooting the series.8221;

Back at the hotel Parker was circumspect about the attention. 8220;I really try to not think too much about what will people think8212;you know, are the homosexuals going to gag? Are the women going to be disappointed because it8217;s just a very complicated way of working.8221;

In the end the film8217;s success will depend on much the same thing as the TV show8217;s: the women and the city.

8220;For me the whole movie is the streets,8221; Parker said. 8220;That8217;s the romance. That8217;s the hope. That8217;s where single women walk out the door every day, and they just don8217;t know what is two steps away.8221;

-Melena Ryzik NYT