Review
CALENDAR GIRLS
Starring Helen Mirren, Julie Walters and Linda Bassett
Directed by Nigel Cole
Opens Thursday, January 1
Check listings
I’ve always had a thing for older women.
When I was a teenager, my good friend’s mom and dad were getting a divorce. I had a crush on Mrs. G from the first moment I met her, and I nursed that crush for my entire teenage life. So the day her divorce came through, I went to her house, ignored common sense and societal pressure, and asked her to dinner. She turned me down.
But I know that my asking, regardless of the answer I received, was appreciated by Mrs. G.
I also know I’m not the only one who’s found himself in this position. I know that others share my appreciation for the beauty of women in their prime. Which makes director Nigel Cole’s Calendar Girls a long overdue celebration of the maturity, experience, bravery and magnificence of older women – without a trace of MILF-dom’s mocking disdain.
Julie Walters plays Annie Clarke, whose husband, John (John Alderton), dies of cancer. Longing to do something to honour her husband’s memory and relieve the suffering of other grieving families, Annie decides to raise enough money to buy a leather sofa for the hospital’s grieving room. Enter Chris (Helen Mirren), Annie’s best friend, who comes up with an idea to raise the money they need. Inspired by a speech John wrote on his deathbed, Chris convinces Annie and their friends to pose for a nude calendar.
The nude calendar becomes a sensation and the Calendar Girls eventually raise enough money to build an entire wing of the hospital dedicated to cancer treatment and a sofa to go along with it.
If it wasn’t a true story it would positively reek with Hollywood sentimentality. Yet there is a simplicity and charm about these women and their journey that raises Calendar Girls above the cheesy Cinderella stories of Flashdance or Coyote Ugly.
And, more importantly, Calendar Girls provides a rare experience – a truly positive body image. Unlike other movies that pretend to honor the beauty in folks we usually ignore (think Shrek or My Big Fat Greek Wedding) Calendar Girls actually succeeds in making us understand that all of these women, regardless of shape or size, are beautiful. And not just on the inside.
Stretch marks, sagging skin, cellulite and wrinkles are unabashedly on display, offering us a glimpse at the honourable scars of life. There is beauty in these traces of experience, beauty that is enhanced by the curves of women who do not starve themselves, who have given birth, lived long lives and still love and play as they did in their youth.
And Nigel Cole allows nothing to undermine this message of beauty. Every one of the Calendar Girls is beautiful – not just Helen Mirren and Julie Walters and their nudity becomes an event to look forward to rather than a cringe inducing joke like Kathy Bates’s hot tub scene in About Schmidt.
Calendar Girls is as important as it is fun.
So if there’s an older woman in your life that you love, take her to see this movie and let her know how beautiful she is when you leave. It will remind her that she’s in what John Clarke called her "most glorious stage," and that you appreciate the beauty that women never lose. |
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