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| Calendar Girls |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 108 |
| Public Rating: 6.32 (94 votes) |
Director: Nigel Cole |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: comedy |
Year: 2003 |
| Writer(s): Tim Firth, Juliette Towhidi |
| Distributor: Touchstone Pictures/Buena Vista International |
| Reviewed by: Avril Carruthers |
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Produced by Nick Barton, Suzanne Mackie, Steve Clark-Hall.
Starring Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, John Alderton, Annett Crosbie, Ciáran Hinds, Celia Imre, Geraldine James, Penelope Wilton, Philip Glenister.
A dramatic piano rendition of that rousing signature tune of British institutions, ‘Jerusalem’, to which the good members of the Rylstone, Yorkshire, Women’s Institute are adding their stout voices, is how the film opens. A caption announces JANUARY, then FEBRUARY and so on, while the topics of the W.I. addresses soon have the audience riveted with boredom and some even slide gently into sleep. Near the back row, Chris Harper (Helen Mirren) is sitting with her friend Annie Clarke (Julie Walters). The Chairperson, Marie (Geraldine James) earnestly tells them how interesting the next talk, on carpets, will be.
‘Thank God, ‘ mutters Chris. ‘For a minute there I thought it was going to be dull.’
The Women’s Institute raises money for worthy causes such as leukaemia research and breast cancer. The W.I. is so worthy and conservative in its methods, however, that the causes it adopts risk being ignored in the general underwhelm.
When Annie’s beloved husband John (John Alderton) falls ill with leukaemia and she and Chris have to spend hours waiting in the hospital waiting room on a couch designed to maximise the discomfort of waiting relatives, raising money for a new couch is just another fund-raising suggestion for the proceeds for the next W.I. calendar. Earthy Chris’ suggestion of George Clooney as the subject of the calendar is disregarded as most of her out-of-left-field ideas are. In his hospital bed, bald from chemo, John jokingly suggests that the women of the Institute themselves pose for the calendar, and it is his speech about his job for National Parks, and sweetly appreciative of women, which, when it is delivered to the W.I. after his funeral, inspires an outrageous possibility.
‘The flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire,’ reads Chris, deadpan, on his behalf. ‘Every stage has its own beauty but the last stage is the most glorious – then very quickly they all go to seed!’ It’s greeted with laughter, but several weeks later a few of the ladies have fortified themselves with enough wine - and encouraging words about the difference between being ‘naked’ and ‘nude’ - to strip off for a shy young photographer in various tasteful poses involving flowers, fruit, cream buns and bare-backed piano playing.
The camera lens is not smeared with Vaseline to blur lines and wrinkles, the calendar is without touch-ups or air-brushing, and all the 50-something ladies, who have never known cosmetic surgery, are simply beautiful. It’s refreshing.
In the whirlwind following the immediate success of the calendar there are amusing situations as the ladies and their families adjust to instant fame, interviews, unscrupulous reporters, salacious gossip as well as approval, and an offer from Hollywood. The issue of raising enough money for the Leeds General Infirmary Relatives’ Room couch is as quickly surpassed as the original number of 500 issues for which Chris had to beg for sponsorship.
Chris’ teenage son Jem (John-Paul Macleod) wilts under the pointing fingers and giggles of his schoolmates while her genial husband Rod (a solid Ciarán Hinds) is expertly duped by a devious journalist into divulging personal secrets. Unassertive Ruth (Penelope Wilton) is rejected by her already distant husband, a master of the double standard. Annie begins to suspect that Chris has lost the plot in the intoxicating Hollywood environment. The humour is very much in this film gently sending itself up.
For the most part the true story on which the film is based has been well adapted to the screen but there are some unsatisfactory elements to do with character arcs in the second half and a curious scene in a Hollywood backlot where Chris and Annie have a melodramatic shouting match that goes nowhere. Though both Mirren and Walters are terrific, the characters of Chris and Annie are a little sketchy, their values a little too glossed over. While the character of Ruth is a tragic cliché, her portrayal in the hands of Penelope Wilton is quietly spirited and sincere. Jessie (the wonderful Annett Crosbie) is beautifully understated, and Celia Imre as Celia displays her usual wonderful comic timing, though neither are seen enough. The story seems jerky in places and drags in others, though this is offset by the very obviously real connection between all these women and the warmth of the humour. The final scene is disappointingly cheap.
Despite this, it’s a great story and heartening not least because it is a real event: the ladies of the W.I. raised £578,000 for leukaemia research and a Unit at Leeds General Infirmary is named after John Baker, who inspired them all. The entire cast and especially the women shine warmly as real people and the inspiration they gave to thousands of women will continue and spread as a result of this film. Overall, Calendar Girls is a triumph.
© Avril Carruthers 11th October 2003
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