"Calendar Girls" just opened in New York and I was at one of the first showings. A rare experience was being one of no more than a half dozen males in a packed theater with the overwhelming majority of the women north of age 50, quite a few FAR north. <br /><br />Comedy and drama combine in a movie that stems from a true story. England, for better or for worse, has a national organization of Women's Institutes, clubs for older women where they meet to explore various and sundry subjects, most - if you believe the film - tied to appreciating domestic pursuits.<br /><br />Here the women of a chapter in a small rural town set (and beautifully filmed) in Yorkshire learn about the glories of broccoli and the never ending adventure of collecting tea towels. Helen Mirren is Chris Harper, happily married with a teenage son. Also happily married is Annie Clarke, played with a power equaling Mirren's, by Julie Walters.<br /><br />Annie's husband succumbs to leukemia. The two women want to donate a comfortable couch to the local hospital's lounge for relatives awaiting news of the condition, indeed fate, of their loved ones.<br /><br />Chris, already a bit of an iconoclast in the Women's Institute whose ideas have not always worked, for example a vodka tasting evening, comes up with the idea of a calendar in which her friends, all in their fifth or sixth decades, will pose in the buff. Their previous calendar featuring local scenes didn't sell well and Chris is sure she has a winner with this novel approach.<br /><br />What follows is an always funny, sometimes moving crusade by Chris and Annie to sign up models and locate a willing but not weird photographer. On the way they encounter opposition from some husbands and certainly from their prim chapter head. Many of these folks are very recognizable because they've been the staple of English comedy since Shakespeare. Well, definitely since the early cinema and the telly.<br /><br />The scenes in which the women reveal all are hilarious but also tasteful.<br /><br />Chris and Annie's project takes off and acquires a life of its own which puts a strain on the women's relationship. Is Chris carried away with the calendar's skyrocketing sales? Does she fall for the faux Hollywood to which some of the women are transported to appear in a commercial and on the Jay Leno Show (yeah, he's in the movie)? Will Annie become the Dear Abby of cancer victims' spouses?<br /><br />Some predictable developments unfold. The very able cast is secondary to the interaction between Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. Mirren is almost over the top but she's anchored by Walters's affecting portrayal which holds viewers sympathy throughout the movie.<br /><br />I wonder if there's an American equivalent to the English Women's Institute. These gals begin each meeting by singing Sir Hubert Parry's "Jerusalem," perhaps the greatest tribute in song to a now vanished empire. They're not stuck in the past but they're not free of it either.<br /><br />Director Nigel Cole brought Yorkshire and its women to life and the screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi is lively.<br /><br />Composer Patrick Doyle, who does everything well, deserves credit for a nice score that complements the story rather than overpowering it as so often is the case.<br /><br />Not a chick flick for seniors. Anyone with a heart will appreciate this story of women taking an unusual and amusing path to fighting cancer. And the basic story is true.<br /><br />8/10.<br /><br />