Calendar Girls 2003

     This film is based on a true story about eleven middle-aged Englishwomen.  Chris Harper and her friend Annie Clarke are two of the middle aged women.  They volunteer a lot of their time at their local Kanpely, Yorkshire County chapter of the Women’s Institute.  Their motto is enlightenment, fun and friendship.  They like most of the women members at the WI.  But, Chris doesn’t appreciate the way the local President Marie runs the chapter?  The monthly presentations seem bland plus devoid of enlightenment and fun.  The fundraising calendar from last year only raised 75.60 pounds?  The calendar featured local bridges and the calendar for this year is to feature local churches.  Annie’s husband has recently passed away and Chris would like the WI to provide a memorial in his memory.  To accomplish this, they will need the calendar to raise more money.  A new sofa for the family room at the hospital will cost 999 pounds!!  Chris proposes the calendar feature tasteful photographs of nude WI members?  Will Chris and Annie be able to convince nine other WI members to pose with December being a group photograph??  

     The calendar will have the women posing behind different tasks that the WI teaches their members.  Such as making bread rolls, knitting, planting flowers, playing the piano.  The calendar will be tastefully photographed and it will tie into the latest idea that older can still be beautiful!!  I thought this film was very funny!!!  One of the lines is, “We’re going to need substantially larger buns for this photo!!  The characters seem real and like normal people!!  The calendar was a success and raised more than 500,000 pounds for a new leukemia unit sofa.  Annie’s husband died from leukemia.  5* (I really liked this movie)

108 min, Comedy directed by Nigel Cole and written by Juliette Towhidi and Tim Firth with Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton, John Alderton, Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Philip Glenister, Ciaran Hinds, Cellia Imrie, Geraldine James, George Costigan, Graham Crowden, John Fortune, Georgie Glen, Angela Curran.

Note:  Imdb 6.9 out of 10 with 22,472 views, Roger Ebert 3*, Rotten Tomatoes 74% with 126 critics 67% with 74,457 audience ratings, empireonline.com 4* out of 5*, Metacritic 60 out of 100 with 30 critics 7.3 out of 10 with 16 ratings, Letterboxd 3.3* out of 5*, Amazon 4.7* out of 5* with 1,121 reviews, Common Sense Media Beth Pratt age 14+, 3* positive, 3* sex, 3* language, 3* consumerism, 3* drinking, drugs & smoking.

Special Note:  There is a scene where some of the real institute members appear as institute members at a cooking competition.  Most of the filming was done in the village of Kettlewell in North Yorkshire about ten miles away from the location of the real institute in Rylstone.  This film was staged as a touring theatrical event in the UK.  The stage show generated more box-office revenue than this movie release.