Don't let the fact that Calendar Girls is about a group of middle-aged women stripping down to their birthday suits scare you off. This humorous, heartwarming holiday movie is just as fresh and funny as the stripped-down comedy The Full Monty. Calendar Girls is based upon the touching true story of a group of conservative elderly women who, in order to raise money for a local hospital, will remove all obstacles in their way - including their clothing! Striking a sensitive balance in a storyline that incorporates both great humor and heartbreak, Calendar Girls proves that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes and ages. Lifelong friends Chris (Helen Mirren of Godsford Park) and Annie (Julie Walters of the Harry Potter movies) live in the remote English town of Napley. The pair attends every meeting of their local chapter of the Women's Institute of Great Britain (WI). The WI national organization encourages traditional feminine activities, for example, knitting, baking and tea table arranging.

Both brash Chris and soft-spoken Annie groan and giggle their way through the tedious, WI lectures that discuss out-dated, but "necessary" topics for an English housewife, such as the various styles of floor rugs or species of broccoli. Annie convinces her beloved husband John (John Alderton), a florist, to speak at the next WI lecture in an attempt to liven up the tedious pace club. While writing his speech John lovingly tells Annie, the blossom of his life, "The last stage of the flower is the most glorious." Yet John never gets the opportunity to lecture for the Napley WI, as soon after he dies from cancer.

Chris, eager to comfort Annie, crafts the idea of using the money raised from the WI's annual calendar sale to purchase a new sofa in John's memory for the family waiting room at the Napley hospital. While the WI calendar usually featured mundane scenes of local landscapes or churches, the imaginative Chris comes up a more eye-catching approach after seeing a risqu porn magazine in her son's room. Drawing inspiration from John's philosophy that the last stage of the flower is the most glorious, Chris convinces her friends to shoot the annual calendar performing conventional WI activities, such as bun baking or apple churning - but while completely nude!

The "calendar girls" become a complete overnight sensation, holding autograph sessions, appearing on the BBC nightly news and even each having their own posse of reporters. However, the women must also now confront how their new-found fame has changed their relationships with their husbands, their town and, most significantly, with each other.

For the male population considering purchasing a ticket to Calendar Girls, I offer this disclaimer: Sons beware. In watching Calendar Girls you will probably experience a horrified reaction similar that of young Jem (John-Paul MacLeod) in the scene where he walks into his kitchen to find Chris, his mother, naked with her naughty bits being hidden conveniently hidden by a bowl of fruit. If the thought of elderly women without clothes on repulses you, well, let's hope you boys look so good when you hit middle age. As Chris classifies the stripped-down photo shoot, "It's an art form. We're not naked. We're nude."

So forget any uneasiness or revulsion you may have toward elderly women in the nude. Throw out any misconceptions that films with older actresses will be as washed-up as their fading careers and movie-star looks. Calendar Girls supplies the biggest confidence boost for the over-fifty female population since First Wives Club. Only instead of A-list celebrities Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn, Calendar Girls features a cast of award-winning, yet relatively unknown, British film veterans whose relative anonymity helps the movie focus on the script rather than the star.

Along with Love Actually, English filmmakers delivered another diamond in the rough with this past holiday season Calendar Girls. Annie's touching love for her husband and Chris's witty dialogue give the movie a perfect balance of slapstick and sentimentality. You can't help but fall in love with these characters during the movie and begin to root whole-heartedly for their success. Yet it is the emblematic sense of girl power in Calendar Girls that makes this movie so memorable and a true holiday classic. In order to help comfort a friend, the dear, older ladies of the Napley WI confront their fears and inhibitions associated with age.

With so many supermodel movie stars and sickeningly skinny Hollywood actresses nowadays, Calendar Girls stands apart with its less than perfect looking cast. The movie inspires women of all ages to feel proud and comfortable with their bodies - wrinkles, cellulite, and all.