Calendar Girls is a 2003 British comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, based on a true story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research (now Blood Cancer UK) under the auspices of the Women's Institutes in April 1999 after the husband of one of their members dies from cancer. The film stars an ensemble cast headed by Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, with Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Geraldine James, Harriet Thorpe and Philip Glenister playing key supporting roles.
Calendar Girls premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and was later shown at Filmfest Hamburg, the Dinard Festival of British Cinema in France, the Warsaw Film Festival, the Tokyo International Film Festival and the UK Film Festival in Hong Kong. It garnered generally positive reactions by film critics, who compared it with another British comedy film The Full Monty (1997). At a budget of $10 million it also became a major commercial success, eventually grossing $93.4 million worldwide following its theatrical release in the U.S. In addition, the picture was awarded the British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Film, and received ALFS Award, Empire Award and Satellite Award nominations for Mirren and Walters, and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Mirren.
Plot
Annie Clarke and Chris Harper live in the Yorkshire village of Knapely, where they spend much time at the local Women's Institute and with each other. When Annie's husband, John, is diagnosed with terminal leukaemia, Chris regularly visits them at the hospital.
Chris complains about the uncomfortable couch in the waiting room. After noticing a "girlie" calendar in a local mechanics shop, she hits upon an idea to raise funds to buy a new sofa. She proposes producing a calendar featuring members of the Knapely branch of the Women's Institute discreetly posing nude while engaged in traditional WI activities, such as baking and knitting.
Chris's proposal initially is met with skepticism, but she eventually convinces nine additional women to participate in the project with her and Annie. They enlist Lawrence, a hospital worker and amateur photographer, to help with the project. The women are all quite shy, but they support each other, overcoming their fears.
The head of the local Women's Institute branch refuses to sanction the calendar, so Chris and Annie plead their case to the national congress of the Women's Institute in London. They are told the final decision rests with the local leader, who grudgingly agrees to the calendar's sale.
The initial printing of 500 quickly sells out and gains national and international media attention. The women are invited, all expenses paid, to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles. Initially Chris is convinced to not go, to watch after her troubled teen by Annie, but a scandalous story about her in a gossip rag by a paparazzi-journalist causes her to follow them to L.A.
The publicity surrounding the calendar eventually takes a toll on their personal lives and, during a photo shoot, tension boils over, Chris and Annie angrily clash. Annie accuses Chris of ignoring her husband and son and the demands of the family business in favour of newfound celebrity; Chris believes Annie revels in her Mother Teresa-like status of catering to the ill and bereaved who have bombarded her with fan mail.
All is resolved eventually, and the women resume their normal, pre-calendar lives.
Before the credits, it is shown that they made over half a million pounds with the calendars and with the proceeds built a special leukemia wing on their local hospital.