First the British made ‘The Full Monty’ and now there’s ‘Calendar Girls’. Whilst ‘The Full Monty’ was a work of fiction, ‘Calendar Girls’ was based on real life. A group of middle-aged Yorkshire women, part of a local women’s institute, got together to pose naked for the institute’s annual calendar. The motive was politically correct; one of the women had lost her husband to leukemia. The nude calendar was organized to raise money for leukemia research.

This was, in all respects, a charming film. Helen Mirren as Chris had the plum role of the group’s stirrer. Together with her partner in crime, Julie Walters playing Annie, they were determined to stir up the stuffiness and small mindedness of the institute. The institute had wanted to do a calendar of landscape photos, the two women decided a nude calendar was a more exciting option.

The film had many good touches. The picture of the husband’s at the local pub drinking themselves to oblivion whilst their wives were out having adventures…the quintessential British moment when a husband and wife are having a cup of tea with the husband reading the newspaper. The husband glibly comments that there’s an article about the group posing naked for a calendar as if it had meant nothing at all, and that his wife wasn’t one of the participants.