<img title="Image: http://www.myvivvo.com/thumbnail.php?file=art.city.ap_245516754.jpg&amp;size=article_medium" src="http://www.myvivvo.com/thumbnail.php?file=art.city.ap_245516754.jpg&amp;size=article_medium" alt="Sex and the City tries to age gracefully">
										
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								<span>Early on in the new "Sex and the City" film -- and don't 
worry, we're not spoiling the plot here -- Carrie and longtime love Mr. 
Big are in bed together.<br><br>A passionate interlude? Nah, they're just reading. Except they both need glasses, and there's only one pair.<br><br>Sharing reading glasses in bed? These two, who fogged up the small screen with their sexual chemistry during the TV series?<br><br>Yes, and that small moment is a sweet acknowledgment that they've both aged.<br><br>As, of course, have we.<br><br>The
 series may be alive and well on TBS reruns. But it's been a full decade
 since "Sex and the City" premiered on HBO, bringing us sex columnist 
Carrie, her three gal pals, and their lustful urban quest for love, good
 sex and even better clothes.<br><br>That means these 30-somethings who 
spent six seasons drinking and trysting with abandon are now 
40-somethings, with a couple characters even flirting with 50. And 
cynics are asking: Can they pull this off? How does "Sex and the City" 
get around the age issue?<br><br>In interviews with The Associated Press
 over the weekend, the cast answered that question unanimously: It 
doesn't. Age is not avoided here. It is embraced and even savored, like,
 well, a nice, cool Cosmopolitan.<br><br>"When we started cobbling 
together the movie, we knew there was only one road we could take," said
 Sarah Jessica Parker, who stars as Carrie and co-produced the film.<br><br>"You
 cannot pretend we're 32, still running around New York drinking with 
liberty and looking for interesting sexual partnerships. It would have 
been vulgar. None of us wanted to do that."<br><br>And so the film 
begins not where the series left off four years ago, but in the present.
 Carrie, now in her early 40s, is now a contributing editor to Vogue and
 a best-selling author.<br><br>She's also got more money, and she's got 
Big, who, you may recall, flew to Paris in the series finale to rescue 
her from a bad relationship. Now they're in a happy place, and if you've
 seen the trailer, you know there are wedding plans afoot and a pretty 
amazing dress. InStyle: See Sex and the City fashions<br><br>But you can
 tell things are going to be difficult, even sad. It's a far cry from 
the story producers originally planned to tell four years ago, when the 
project stalled, at least partly because of reported demands by Kim 
Cattrall, who plays Samantha, for more money and creative control.<br><br>"The
 movie we were going to make was totally different," said Parker, 43. 
"It was a romp, kind of like those Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road movies.
 But four years have passed, and there's just a lot more time invested 
in all these relationships."<br><br>That includes the ties between the 
women, said Cynthia Nixon, aka Miranda, the high-strung, hardworking 
lawyer who is at a breaking point when the movie begins.<br><br>"We were
 all aware, partly because of the big screen but also because we're 
older, that there has to be a maturity there with the way we confront 
problems," Nixon said. "So when Miranda and Carrie fight, they take a 
little distance and try and work it out."<br><br>Maturity can be seen in
 the clothes as well. "Were we still wearing these crazy outfits from 10
 years ago, that would look wildly inappropriate," Nixon mused. But 
relax, fashionistas: Fabulous clothes still have their place.<br><br>"We
 do have fantastic clothes and shoes, that hasn't changed," noted 
Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, the Park Avenue socialite who's 
found domestic contentment with her good-natured husband, Harry, and 
their adopted Chinese daughter. "But we couldn't pretend that time 
didn't pass. Our point is to tell it like it is."<br><br>The best 
example of that is Cattrall's Samantha Jones, whose frank expressions of
 her lusty desires always made her character seem larger than life. But 
Samantha also suffered the worst hardship of all the women: breast 
cancer, in the show's last season.<br><br>Cattrall is 51, and in the 
series Samantha rarely spoke of her own age. In the film, her age is 
mentioned and even celebrated, in a poignant way.<br><br>"For a 
Hollywood movie that's extraordinary," said Cattrall. "But I think it's 
the way the show has always been. Whether it's aging or sex or dating or
 disease or 9/11, it's been met head on."<br><br>And Cattrall knows her 
performance is influenced by her own aging process. "A lot of things 
have happened in the last four years, and they haven't all been great," 
she said, referring to her divorce and her father's diagnosis of 
dementia. "And it shades what you do. It shades who you are."<br><br>With
 nobody left to represent the younger set, Michael Patrick King, who 
directed and wrote the film (and co-produced it with Parker), brought in
 Jennifer Hudson, the 26-year-old Oscar winner from "Dreamgirls," to 
play Carrie's tech-savvy assistant. Parker said the purpose of the new 
role is "to reflect what that time of life is all about, how you feel 
about love, and how simple it is then."<br><br>To Hudson, that makes 
sense. "Now there's another kind of character the audience can relate 
to," she said, also noting that she's the first major black character to
 figure in the story.<br><br>Aging is not just a female process, of 
course, and Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth, has a little added gravitas 
now, perhaps a few gray hairs, and a more mature approach to romance (To
 a point. This is Big, after all.) Noth, 53, seems thrilled that the 
film is presenting a set of mature characters.<br><br>"Where did the 
notion come from that the lives of adults are less interesting than the 
lives of those under 30?" he asked. "I actually think the movie has MORE
 relevance. I think the girls look better. And I'm just happy that we 
have some adult entertainment here.<br><br>"We've strayed so far in our culture, it's like, you know, can kiddie time be over?"</span>
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