Calendar Girls (DVD)
APPROX. 108 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2003 - MPA RATING: PG-13
" ...an affable, amusing, and highly diverting piece of typical British whimsy. That all of it really happened is almost beside the point but charming in itself.
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This is one of those little films that the English seem to excel at, the filmmakers taking a small, inconsequential subject and making us care and respond to it. "Calendar Girls," the 2003 film version of the real-life experiences of a group of Yorkshire housewives, is beautifully made, well acted, charming, engaging, humorous, and heartwarming. More important, it is not just another woman's picture. It reaches out and touches some universal feelings in all of us that should make it entertaining across both genders.
The stroy is about an actual group of middle-aged British women who decided to pose nude for a calendar in 1999. But it's not as naughty as it sounds. The calendar photographs were all very tasteful and discreet, and the cause was worthy, at first to make enough money to buy furniture for a hospital as a memorial to one of their number's recently deceased husband and later to raise money for leukemia research. Their goals were realized beyond their wildest dreams.
The women in the story are members of the National Women's Institute of Knapely, the WI, a prim-and-proper organization of ladies who meet each month for self improvement and to hear lectures on bird watching and rug making and such. Every year the group does a calendar, usually pictures of local bridges and such. One of the members, Chris, decides it's time they did something more substantial in order to produce serious money for the hospital, and so she initiates her own, unconventional calendar idea.
The movie is at its best when it's describing the reactions of the various women to the notion of posing nude and when it's engaged in the preliminary actions leading up to the photography. Naturally, the women are reticent about taking their clothes off, no matter that most of their bodies are to be hidden behind house plants and cooking utensils. The second half of the movie bogs down a bit in the public reaction to their published calendar, their subsequent celebrity when the calendar catches on, and their trip to Hollywood and a "Tonight Show" appearance with Jay Leno.
While most of the film is a delight, it's also hampered by attempting to cover too much territory in too short a time. There's the friendship of the two main characters, Chris and Annie, to consider; the death of Annie's husband; the problems Chris's son has in adjusting to his mother posing nude; several spousal responses, including a wholly extraneous affair for one of them; besides the aforementioned Hollywood adventure. I suspect the film might have been better off focusing on one main character and exploring more fully her personal involvement in the matter.
The movie stars Helen Mirren as Chris and Julie Walters as Annie, the two best friends who concoct the calendar scheme, and both actresses are wonderful. Mirren, of course, is always a pleasure to watch, whether it's the tough Scotland Yard Inspector Jane Tennison in "Prime Suspect" or the slinky sorceress Morgana in "Excalibur." In "Calendar Girls" she was nominated for Golden Globe and Golden Satellite awards for her performance. Ms. Walters I remember best from "Educating Rita" and more recently as Mrs. Weasley in the "Harry Potter" series. For her sensitive portrayal in "Calendar Girls" she, too, was nominated for a Golden Satellite award.
"Calendar Girls" has been unfairly compared to the earlier British comedy "The Full Monty," which was about middle-aged men deciding to do a strip show. That both films deal with similar subject matter, it seems to me, is immaterial to the success of either film. They are both funny, entertaining, and uplifting in their own unique ways, and the fact that they are alike in some respects is neither here nor there. They work, which is all that matters.
