WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - What is it about the British, do you suppose, that leads them in times of need to take off their clothes?
That's what the blue-collar blokes did in "The Full Monty" and that is the solution of the Yorkshire garden club ladies. They pose in the altogether to raise money for a lounge in their local hospital in the new lighthearted, lightweight comedy, "Calendar Girls."
Arriving soon after "Something's Gotta Give," this is the second movie reminder that women in their 50s can still be sexy. That may not draw a huge teen audience to this relatively tame, but endearing tale, based loosely on an actual calendar. Still, the traditionally underserved older market is likely to embrace "Calendar Girls," even if it takes a few wrong turns in the later going.
First-time screenwriters Juliette Towhidi and Tim Firth work awfully hard putting obstacles in the way of these menopausal pin-ups, just as the calendar strategically places flower pots, cider presses and pianos in the way to keep the film safely in the PG-13 range. For dramatic purposes, objections have been invented for the club members and from the national headquarters of their organization, when apparently there was little resistance from either source.
And the movie rings a bit false as the calendar girls head off to America on a publicity trip. There, the project's two chief instigators, Chris (Helen Mirren) and Annie (Julie Walters), find themselves at odds over the ways they handle success. On the whole, though, "Calendar Girls" is a pleasant way to start the year.
Chris and Annie are kindred spirits, barely stifling their giggles at Rylstone and District Women's Institute meetings, which feature such heady lecture topics as "The History of Broccoli."
They feel the need to shake up the club and Chris' calendar scheme has seismic potential. But first, the women need to find a suitably discreet photographer and decide whether he should be in the room when the snapshots are taken. After those thorny negotiations and after Chris' nervous sales speech to the club's national council, the gals gradually cast off their inhibitions and their clothes. The calendar gets printed and they become media darlings.
There is backlash, as Chris' son uses his embarrassment over his mum as an excuse to act irresponsibly with recreational drugs. While she starts paying closer attention to problems at home, the rest of the amateur models jet to Los Angeles to appear on Jay Leno's show. They gawk at the size of their limo and hotel suites and get conned by an ad agency to get naked again for a soap commercial. These scenes miscalculate, though, making the women look more gullible than they are, all in the name of a tidy life lesson.
Stars Mirren and Walters rise above the film's weaknesses. The former give the movie its spark as the boisterous driving force behind the calendar, while the latter plays against type as a dour widow of a leukemia victim whose actions both honor her husband and help her get beyond grieving. We never get to know the other women much, though director Nigel Cole (of "Saving Grace," another tale of middle-age female enterprise) gets entertaining performances from them in snippets of looks and reactions.
It should not be surprising to the Women's Institute women that their calendar is successful, for sex sells at any age. But "Calendar Girls" is really at its core an innocent comic exercise, fueled more on charm than titillation.
The women of the Rylstone Women's Institute drop everything to raise money for Leukemia research.
