Reviewer's Rating 3 out of 5
Calendar Girls DVD (2003)

With a "winning blend of earthy humour and familiar faces behaving disgracefully", half the fun of this comedy - about members of the Women's Institute stripping for a calendar - is knowing that it's based on true characters. Fans of the movie won't want to miss this DVD, where you get to meet the real-life characters.

Calendar Girls DVD screengrab

Arts And Crafts Exposed

If there's one complaint about the DVD, it's that the extra features could be longer. What you do get is certainly entertaining, though. The Naked Truth featurette opens with an idyllic rural scene... until you realise that the ladies meeting in the road are in fact some of the calendar strippers! They turn out to be a charming, if slightly bemused, lot as they talk about their incredible rise to fame. Funnier are their tales about the awkward photo shoot, where such amusing problems as iced buns not proving big enough to hide nipple shots were the problem du jour.

Hollywood Comes To Town

Apart from four deleted scenes - one of which is an amusing extra rendition of Jerusalem - the other extra feature is the usually dreaded 'making of' featurette. Normally cheesy as gorgonzola, this particular look behind-the-scenes is different as there's no relentless sales pitch going on. Instead, we learn that some of the cast were every bit as nervous as the original WI ladies about taking their clothes off, and seemed to have as much fun making the movie as their characters had doing the calendar.

EXTRA FEATURES

  • The Naked Truth featurette
  • Creating The Calendar 'making of' featurette
  • Four deleted scenes
  • This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-N5 DVD player.

    Technical Information

    REGION SOUND MENUS RATIO
    2 Dolby Digital 5.1 Animated, with music 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
    CHAPTERS SUBTITLES AUDIO TRACKS
    11 English English
    CAPTIONS EXTRAS SUBTITLES CERTIFICATE
    English None of the special features come with subtitles 12

    End Credits

    Director: Nigel Cole

    Writer: Juliette Towhidi, Tim Firth

    Stars: Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton

    Genre: Comedy, Drama

    Length: 108 minutes

    Cinema: 05 September 2003

    DVD: 09 February 2004

    Country: UK