Dir. Nigel Cole, 2003, UK, 108 mins
Cast: Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton, Annette Crosbie, Geraldine James, Celia Imrie, John Alderton, Philip Glenister, Ciaran Hinds
Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton, Annette Crosbie: the cast list of Calendar Girls read like a Who's Who of the grand dames of British cinema and TV. Actresses above a 'certain age' are often neglected by a contemporary film scene dedicated to the cult of Youth but in this interpretation of a real-life media frenzy, however, they are very much in focus.
In 1999, the Rylston District Women's Institute decided to make a few changes to their fundraising calendar. It would feature the 40- and 50-year olds engaged in traditional W.I. activities - cider pressing, cake baking and flower arranging. The hook? The women would be stepping into the realm of the twentysomething glamour model: they would all be nude.
Initially the calendar was to raise money for the Leukaemia Unit of the local hospital following the death of the husband of W.I. member Angela Baker. 'We had no idea that we would get so much coverage,' Baker later said. When the calendar launched it instantly made national news in Britain and led to an American tour, raising over £500,000 for the hospital en route. Fiction couldn't be this good, Disney's Buena Vista decided.
Calendar Girls begins with the rousing chords of 'Jerusalem', a hymn that starts every meeting of the Knapely Women's Institute. The film ends with the sliding notes of rock and rhythm and blues, director Nigel Cole (Saving Grace, Cold Feet) using the soundtrack to reflect the breaking of tradition that is the film's theme.
The meetings are well meaning ('enlightenment, fun and friendship' is the motto) but inherently dull. 'All you ever wanted to know about broccoli' - the message of one assembly - is hardly riveting stuff. With bold characters like Chris (Helen Mirren) and Annie (Julie Walters), it's only a matter of time before the 'girls' find an eyebrow-raising outlet for their natural, ageless vivacity.
One of the film's strong points is in underplaying the key event that follows, namely the death of Annie's husband John, played with tear-jerking understatement by John Alderton (Please, sir!). It is this event that inspires the feisty Chris to suggest a nude calendar - but the other women are not so easily persuaded. It is a combination of guilt ("it's what John would have wanted" interjects Annie) and mischief (when else will you get a chance to 'get 'em out'?) that wins the girls over.
That this simple idea will prove so exciting to the media isn't instantly apparent. When Chris and Annie (Julie Walters) arrive at the press launch, they are distraught that no one has turned up. In fact, so many journalists have arrived that the spillover takes up the entire ballroom next door. This is a moment that sums up the Very British humour of the film (rather Victoria Wood in vein); but in this scene demonstrates how an audience can be won over by the plight of the underdog.
Comparisons with The Full Monty are inevitable, and certainly the film has some of the same mix of 'Northern Grit'; quirky, people-based humour; and real sadness. "I like making people laugh and cry," says Cole - and he certainly achieves both of these things. "I'm a big softie at heart and get a bit sentimental, but I get embarrassed about that so I like to puncture it with a joke."
While The Full Monty comparison holds for the first half of the film, the second half is more an exploration of the strain that fame places on relationships: the very look of the film is altered to reflect this change in mood. "We used stockings over the lenses for all the English scenes to give it a softer, gentler tone," said cinematographer Ashley Rowe. (One wonders if this doesn't also make this film more marketable to American tastes.) A naked lens was used for the Hollywood scenes, giving a harder, cleaner edge with more shadow and a fiercer tone.
Chris' son, Jem, mortified by his mother's mid-life crisis, takes to booze and origami. Meanwhile, her husband unwittingly confesses their lack of sex life to a tabloid hack. Rather than staying to address these issues, Chris cannot resist the lure of Hollywood as the girls blaze a trail across America, even appearing on the Jay Leno show.
At the same time, Annie takes issue with Chris' publicity hunger, and the friendship flounders under the stress of a - nude - washing powder advert. It takes a showdown on an eerie, cardboard set to bring them to rights - and they must come to rights as, after all, the W.I. is about the strength of female bonds.
Calendar Girls has already been a hit at Cannes, and is likely to be the British success at the box office this autumn. The producers naturally hope it can revisit the financial heights of The Full Monty, finally bringing to fruition Colin Welland's (Chariots of Fire) boast at the Oscars that "The British are coming!"
But with its potentially limited audience, can Calendar Girls do for middle-aged women what Bridget Jones did for twentysomething cinemagoers? Here's hoping.
Ruth Bushi
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