Calendar Girls

The Calendar Girls is based on the true story of a group of middle-aged ladies in Yorkshire, UK who create a nude calendar (not "naked") to raise money for the leukemia ward and waiting room of the local hospital. The struggle with the difference between art and non-art (pornography); they struggle with celebrity. They struggle with their personal relationships - all with a sense of droll humor and a sense of loss and empathy for those who lose loved ones through leukemia.

What impressed me is that the Calendar Girls understand what they did and why, but when they are invited to be on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno just blows it by telling them to get more women to pose naked. That it shows how shallow the journalism that surrounds them is, as well as shows that seek to promote them but end up insulting them, is a revelation.

These ladies have dignity. In the final alaysis it is about empowerment. I would have wished it could have done a bit more to resolve the relationship between the Helen Mirren character and her husband and son...

Both Helen Mirren and Julie Christie are marvelous.

By the way, they pose nude but you don't see anything (except in a couple of places, in passing, some breasts are evidenced.) Their beauty, as the flowers of Yorkshire, is best as they age.