Stephen Frears has accomplished the near impossible. He’s made movie full of naked women that manages to be not the least bit titillating. One might call it wholesome.

That’s Mrs. Henderson Presents, a practically sepia-toned period piece about the real-life rich widow who rescued a threadbare London theatre with a dotty idea.

The widow was Laura Henderson (Dame Judi Dench, here hitting “11” on the adorable meter). And the theatre was The Windmill, a music hall that became famous later on as a breeding ground for British comedians.

It’s a cute story, how the irrepressible Mrs. Henderson became a de facto theatre producer as much to scandalize polite society as to give her something to do with her time. And it’s told in a fairly linear fashion by Frears, a director usually associated with darker and edgier themes. The man who gave us Dirty Pretty Things now delivers a movie you could take your parents to.

Mrs. Henderson’s story opens with its title character’s husband’s funeral and follows her on her determined journey through London theatre, where her very cluelessness is her strength. She rustles up a talented director named Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins, whose volume level seems somewhat muted for the role).

With Mrs. Henderson riding shotgun creatively, the theatre is a hit, but only long enough for the competitors to copy her initial “Follies-style” ideas. But it sets up her great inspiration — a French-postcard version of musical theatre, with nude women as backdrops.

To that end, she stickhandles her way through the mores of polite post-Edwardian society — buttering up the Lord Chamberlain (an almost unrecognizable Christopher Guest) to where he concedes the artistic value of nudity in paintings. Having won that point, the nude girls revue gets the greenlight — provided the women stay perfectly still throughout, just as in a painting.

The auditioning of the girls and depictions of assorted hanky panky (including a scene where the director and crew are made to strip naked to put everyone on the same level) provides warm-hearted fodder for much of Mrs. Henderson Presents. But it doesn’t quite make up for the fact that there isn’t much of a dramatic arc in the movie.

There’s a brief turn to the relationship between Mrs. Henderson and the married Van Damm. Is it a schoolgirl crush? A surrogate marriage? But for one scene where she reacts awkwardly to meeting his wife, the relationship lies unexplored. There’s also a sketchy tragedy of a “girl with a past” (Kelly Reilly), whose life is made worse by Mrs. Henderson’s interventions.

In the end, it’s all backdrop. Mrs. Henderson Presents simply presents an exercise for Ms. Dench to twinkle.

Bottom line:

Never has nudity been less titillating than in this sepia-toned period piece. Judi Dench is in adorable mode, playing an irrepressible, iron-willed widow. Bob Hoskins gives a low-key performance for his half of an ostensibly contentious onscreen relationship. Nice, but uninvolving, a film to take your parents to.
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