The ‘Sex and the City’ ladies are back

The ‘Sex and the City’ ladies are back, in Abu Dhabi, no less, and with a $10 million wardrobe budget

NEW YORK — Samantha is fighting an escalating war with menopause. Carrie and Miranda have lines around their eyes and mouths that weren’t there before. And Charlotte looks as though she might occasionally nip at some of those delectable cupcakes she bakes with her kids.

It’s true. Even the “Sex and the City’’ girls are not immune to aging. In their new movie, “Sex and the City 2,’’ which opens nationwide on Thursday, all are in the throes of a midlife crisis. But these ladies don’t sulk. Instead they ramp up their wardrobes, step up their antics and outrage, outrage against the dying light.

Their instincts are sound, according to experts. Jacqueline Olds, a professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General and McLean hospitals, said while most of us can’t relate to the splashy clothes and endless glitz, the ladies’ intimacy and support for one another resounds with most women.

“It’s been a trend for a long time that women turn to each other,’’ said Olds, who co-wrote “The Lonely American.’’ “Friendships help restore your sense of proportion when you’re losing it, which happens as we get older.’’

So it’s no wonder all four “Sex and the City’’ girls thought taking solace in one another during a trip to Abu Dhabi, paid for by Samantha’s potential public relations client, was good for what ailed them. Once they arrive, there seems to be a limitless supply of luxury, fun, and excuses to change clothes — which have always been a few of their favorite things.

While filming the Abu Dhabi part of the movie, which was actually shot in Morocco, the actresses said they grew closer. “I came away loving them more than I ever have because I got to see them in a new way,’’ Sarah Jessica Parker said of her costars at a press conference for the film last Sunday. It was held in the shoe department at Bergdorf Goodman. The movie’s first scene takes place in the department store.

“I was so reliant on them and I was so challenged by the work that they were doing, how good they were and what thoroughbreds they were,’’ she said. “And nothing could get us down — no matter how hungry we were, no matter how much we had to go to the bathroom.’’

The film, based on the series, which ran from 1998 to 2004, is a sequel to the blockbuster 2008 movie. This one is meant to be a kiss to women everywhere, said writer and director Michael Patrick King.

Thanks to a $10 million wardrobe budget, the clothes in this film are even more gorgeous and eye-popping than they were in the first. Parker’s character goes through 41 outfits. So as Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte strut around in their Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik shoes, draped in Dior, Alexander McQueen, and Pucci, each displaying an individual sense of style, you don’t get the sense that these women are planning to settle into quiet routines any time soon.