Featured Movies
Partners
Calendar GirlsIn 1999, 11 women from a Women's Institute branch in the north of England bucked the quaint cake-baking and flower-arranging image of the WI when they posed naked for a charity calendar. That was novel enough. But the fact that they were raising money for the hospital where one of their husbands had died of leukaemia - and that the naked ladies were aged between 50 and 70 - made them internationally known.
Calendar Girls, which is based on their story, is one of those films that Britain does so well: bittersweet without being overly sentimental, and with lashings of good honest humour. The names have been changed, the experiences and characteristics of the real women apparently chopped up and shared around; but essentially this is a faithful account of their experience, with lashings of feel-good moments. There is also a wary look at the way in which celebrity put pressures on these women, whose idea of the spotlight hitherto had been to enter their jam sponge in the local fête.
Julie Walters plays Annie, who loses her husband to cancer; Helen Mirren is Chris, the more charismatic and maverick of the two, who has the idea for the nude calendar. This pair are marvellous - Walters is cast against type in the quieter role, likewise Mirren, who is a world apart from her usually dour roles, sensationally sexy and very funny to boot. They're joined by a cast of British character actresses, including Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie and Linda Bassett.
The film is at its best when depicting the women's initial attempts to persuade both themselves and each other to pose nude, and the shocked reaction by their fellow villagers and more stuffy WI colleagues when their plan is discovered.
The film is directed by Nigel Cole, whose sole film credit to date was the comedy Saving Grace with Brenda Blethyn and, more pertinently, the first series of 'Cold Feet', which also demonstrated a finely judged balance of comedy, pathos and drama, and top-notch ensemble acting.
|
