“Calendar Girls” (Touchstone)
“Calendar Girls” is a film based on the true story of a group of middle-aged women in North Yorkshire, England who posed nude for a good cause. The film is tastefully told and embraces the facts in a way that never cheapens the story or the impact it makes. Helen Mirren and Julie Walters head a cast of near perfect actors and make this is a movie to cherish.
Chris (Mirren) and Annie (Walters) are best friends who live in North Yorkshire and belong to the local chapter of the Women’s Institute. Each year their club sponsors a calendar that they sell to raise money for charity. After Annie’s husband John (John Alderton) gets sick, the two women want to do something to raise enough money to buy a sofa for the local hospital waiting room. Chris comes up with the idea of doing a calendar of them and their friends posing nude.
The ladies do end up posing, very tastefully of course, and find themselves becoming national celebrities. They even cross the ocean and appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” This latter part of the movie when all the celebrity attention takes place is the weakest part of the film. The first part which deals with the reason for the calendar is the strongest.
Mirren is an amazing actress and makes every role she takes one which resonates with truth. Walters is also very good, and the two women do seem to be true friends in their parts. All of the supporting players are perfectly cast and the whole movie seems to ring true which is what a movie of this type has to do.
The movie is rated PG-13 for brief nudity and mild profanity.
“Calendar Girls” is a feel good movie aimed for older audiences. Teens may get some fun from seeing older women making a calendar but most will just be horrified by the thought. Mirren, Walters and the rest of the actresses in the movie are to be commended by not demanding to be made to look younger than their years. They show that beauty is beauty at any age.
I scored “Calendar Girls” a pinned up 7 out of 10.
