Taglines: They dropped everything for a good cause.
Chris and Annie are the best of friends – very different, but very close. Living in a small village in the Yorkshire Dales, their peaceful lives are shattered when Annie’s husband dies of leukemia.
An active member of the local Women’s Institute, Chris enlists the support of her fellow members in a fund-raising initiative for the local hospital. Her seemingly traditional idea is to produce a calendar, with a different woman photographed for each month. Each one will be engaged in a classic WI task, such as jam making, flower pressing and knitting.
Sounds traditional enough, but her idea has a radical twist – the women will be in the nude. Before they know it, the women are hitting the headlines at home and abroad. Whisked off to Hollywood on a whirlwind publicity tour, they take their turn on the talk shows and in magazine photo shoots. Amidst the hype and glamour, the friendship between Chris and Annie is put to the test.
The story for Touchstone Pictures’ new film “Calendar Girls” was inspired by the reallife story of the Rylstone and District Women’s Institute, an organization that strives to “seek happiness in achievement. In April 1999, when the group published their 2000 calendar, they knew they might raise a few eyebrows, but they didn’t expect much drama. The calendar was published in the hope of raising a few pounds for the local hospital, which had cared for Angela Baker’s husband John who had recently died of leukemia.
Angela, her friend Tricia Stewart and fellow members of the WI wanted to give something back to the place and the people who’d treated John at the end of his life. To boost sales, Tricia suggested that the calendar have a more original theme. It would feature the women engaged in traditional Women’s Institute activities, such as cider-pressing, cake baking and flower arranging, but the novel element was that the models, all of a certain age, would be in the nude.
Read the Full Production Notes
Directed by: Nigel Cole
Starring: Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, John Alderton, Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Philip Glenister, Ciaran Hinds, Celia Imrie
Screenplay by: Juliette Towhidi
Production Design by: Martin Childs
Film Editing by: Michael Parker
Music by: Patrick Doyle
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for nudity, language, drug-related material.
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
Release Date: December 19, 2003
