Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2105 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-02-09
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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) loses her husband, Chris (Mirren) cooks up a scheme to commemorate 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 a true story, 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

DVD Description
Calendar Girls is a humorous and inspiring dramatisation of the true story of the Yorkshire Women’s Institute members who stripped for a charity calendar to raise funds for a local leukaemia unit, where a friends husband was treated until his death. Julie Walters plays Annie, whose husband dies of leukaemia and Helen Mirren plays her best friend Chris, the genius and driving force behind the calendar. The film also features roles from the hilarious Celia Imrie, Annette Crosbie, Penelope Wilton and Linda Bassett.

The film follows the loss of Annie’s husband, John, the spark of the calendar idea, their white wine fuelled photoshoot, the ensuing media frenzy as the world wakes up to Yorkshire’s very own calendar girls and the effects of their new found media fame on their friendships and families.

Special Features

• Deleted scenes
  
• The Naked Truth
  
• Creating the Calendar

DVD Technical Information:

• Running Time: 105 minutes approx.
  
• Subtitles: English, English for the Hearing Impaired
  
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, English
  
• PAL
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
  
• Widescreen
  
• Region Code: 2
  
• Disc Format: Dual layer

Customer Reviews

On Par With Full Monty
Calendar girls is a typically Britsh film and has echoes of Full Monty running through it. However it is the excellent cast of British actresses, Julie Walters, Helen Mirren, Annette Crosbie to name but a few that really make this movie something special. You will be surprised by the number of faces that you recognise in this film, like John Alderton, and not all of them in major roles.

It has that understated quality that makes it very believable and draws the audience into the story, triggering emotions along with the experiences of the characters. There are films that have made me laugh and some that have made me cry, this is the first that did both at the same time. There are a number of human issues dealt with in the film without overt drama but in a warm and very genuine manner.

And there is most definitely humour. Definitely a British classic and one for the collection!

Mum would have loved it
I sadly lost my Mum last year to cancer, she was only young and a very loving mum, she was my best friend. Mum always wanted to watch this fantastic and touching film but sadly never got the opportunity so I did so on her behalf. It is a film I will watch over. This film is a must have for anyone who has been through the same thing. Overall, prepare to have the tissues at the ready as you will cry and laugh at the same time. Superb acting, based on a true story and will be an absolute classic. Now where can I buy the calendar?!

Obscuring the naughty bits
In 1999, eleven members of the District Women's Institute in Rylstone, North Yorkshire, England posed starkers on a year 2000 calendar printed up to collect funds to benefit leukemia research after the death of John Baker, Assistant National Park Officer for the Yorkshire Dales and husband of WI member Angela, of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1998. What made the venture unusual was that the models were all just local ladies in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. In the UK, 88,000 copies were eventually sold, and 250,000 in the States. CALENDAR GIRLS, based on this story, has been characterized by a principal as about 75% accurate in the re-telling, with the remainder being scriptwriter's embellishment for comedic or dramatic effect. The original idea for the calendar was suggested by Angela's friend, Tricia Stewart.

In the film adaptation, Helen Mirren plays Chris Harper (based on real-life Tricia Stewart) and Julie Walters and John Alderton play Annie and John Clark respectively (based on Angela and John Baker). The calendar saga, from conception to realization and international fame, is centered in the fictional village of Knapley. Harper originally gets the idea after 1) finding a soft porn magazine hidden in her teenage son's room and 2) noticing a girlie calendar on the wall of a village shop. The plan is to produce and sell 500 copies of the calendar to raise the 900 pounds necessary to buy a new sofa for the Relatives' Waiting Room in the local hospital in which John Clark died of his disease. Not only must Chris and Annie surmount the understandable reluctance of their friends and fellow WI members to pose nude (not "naked"), but also convince the chairwomen of the District and National WI that the reputation of the organization won't be sullied.

There is, of course, some nudity in the film, but, as on the calendar itself, it's discreetly done. The naughty bits are strategically hidden by sticky buns, flowering plants, and such. But enough of Helen Mirren is seen for the viewer to realize that physical beauty and maturity of "that certain age" are not mutually incompatible.

Though the script touches on such sober subjects as teenage drug use and spousal infidelity, the film as a whole is delightfully witty, charming, warm, and poignant. And then there are the beautiful Yorkshire towns and fells in which the movie was shot. Is this one of the year's best films? No. Is it a great cinematic achievement? No again. But, I'm giving it five stars anyway because, as an entertainment vehicle, it's everything I ask for when I go to a motion picture show. I sat and watched with a silly smile on my face for almost the entire run time, and left the cinema in no way unsatisfied. What more could one reasonably want?