Lifelong friends Chris (Helen Mirren) and Annie (Julie Walters) aren't exactly the Women's Institute kind of women. They sit in the back row at the British women's group's weekly meetings giggling when they should be singing, enter store-bought cakes in bakeoffs and don't know jam from jelly. Chris is the rebellious type; Annie's quiet but strong, a trait that serves her well when her husband John (John Alderton) dies of cancer in a small Yorkshire hospital. Although she's grieving, Annie wants to make life more comfortable for the families of other dying patients, so she and Chris come up with a scheme to raise money for a new sofa for the relatives' room in the hospital: they'll make a WI calendar, featuring members performing typical WI tasks--baking, knitting, playing piano--only the women in it, all of a certain age, will be--gasp!--naked. Scratch that--nude. This is art, after all. Whatever you call it, when the calendar arrives in print it creates such a stir that the Chris, Annie and their fellow models are on TV and in the papers all over England, which means Hollywood isn't far behind. Their celebrity grows, and so does their confidence, but as they deal with their newfound fame, their friendship is put to the test.