Calendar Girls

Calendar Girls Review

I love me some Helen Mirren. She is utterly fantastic, oh so lovely, hilariously on-point and simply beautiful to lay eyes on. When you take an actress as comfortable in her own skin and throw her into a film as cheeky as this one, you can almost guarantee brilliance.

Watching Mirren balance the saucy fun with the good-hearted sentiment is a pure joy.

The film is based on a true story revolving around a few fifty-something ladies and their attempt to pay tribute to a man they all loved. When Annie's husband dies from cancer, some of her friends (led by the outspoken Chris) take it upon themselves to raise some money for the hospital to purchase a new (and more comfortable) sofa for those who wait day in and day out for news of a loved ones condition. Having spent a great deal of time in the discomfort of the hospital waiting room, Annie and Chris know what they are talking about. In an attempt to not merely raise money, but also raise awareness, Chris convinces her fellow `Local Women's Institute' members to pose nude for a calendar.

Enter controversy.

Helen Mirren must be given a ridiculous amount of praise for what she was able to do with this film. Her mere presence alone is worth the price of admission, but her ability to add the right amount of cheekiness with the right amount of earnest sentiment made her character transformation not only wholly believable but completely endearing and relatable. You understood this woman, even when her motives seemed misplaced. She commanded a scene, making herself known to all, but you never missed the slight twitch of humanity scratching beneath that harsh exterior.

And yes, I think Helen Mirren is hot.

For a film that is the epitome of `chick flick sentiment', `Calendar Girls' becomes something so much more thanks to the performances, which are so in tune with one another and with the films purpose.

`Calendar Girls' is cheeky fun with a heart of gold.

Calendar Girls Overview

When 12 ordinary members of the Women's Institute, a prim and proper local ladies' club, decide they need to find a more compelling way to raise money for a new charity, they turn to their traditional annual calendar and give it a very untraditional twist. Behind the usual baked goods, the apple pressing, and the flower arrangements are the women -- completely nude! Starring 2003 Golden Globe nominee Helen Mirren (Best Actress, CALENDAR GIRLS) and Julie Walters (HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS), CALENDAR GIRLS is a terrifically entertaining comedy. And that's the naked truth.

Calendar Girls Specifications

In the sensible yet elegant hands of actresses Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, Calendar Girls walks a fine line between sappiness and snickering and ends up both wonderfully funny and gently touching. When her best friend Annie (Walters, Billy Elliot) loses her husband, Chris (Mirren, Prime Suspect, Gosford Park) cooks up a scheme to memorialize him: They and their friends--all fiftysomething women--will make a nude calendar to raise money for the hospital where he died. The calendar becomes hugely popular, but the success may drive a wedge between the two women's friendship. Based on an actual event, Calendar Girls carefully balances the stories of several women as it follows the calendar's media explosion, becoming a surprisingly moving fable of loss, determination, and the perils of fame. And let's face it--Helen Mirren is one of the wittiest and sexiest women alive, clothes on or not. --Bret Fetzer

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