Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Lesley Manville dreams of pretty dresses in a cosy and whimsical trip to the French capital.
Harris twee: Lesley Manville and Lambert Wilson
Mrs Harris is an optimist. For her, every day is her lucky day, even as she scrimps and saves while cleaning and sewing for those better off than she. And even though the war ended twelve years ago, she still dreams that she will be reunited with her Eddie, when he makes his way back from Poland to Battersea. Indeed, Ada Harris dreams big and on a fanciful whim she places £100 on a dog at the races because she likes its name: Haute Couture. Of course, the dog loses, but Mrs Harris has a bigger dream – to go to Paris to purchase an original dress by Christian Dior…
Lesley Manville went to Hollywood when she was nominated for her first Oscar, for playing Cyril Woodcock opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. In that she played the administrator of an haute couture outfit in 1950s’ London, the very same period and setting of her new film. Adept at playing every rung of the English class ladder, Ms Manville is a character actress par excellence and is as comfortable in the role of a char lady here as no doubt she will be in the regal frocks of Princess Margaret in the upcoming series of The Crown. In fact, both Princess Margaret and Mrs Harris vie for the attentions of Monsieur Dior in the second half of this feelgood if improbable adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel. Previously filmed as the TV movies Ein Kleid von Dior in 1982 and Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris in 1992, with Angela Lansbury, it was also the basis for the award-winning stage musical Flowers for Mrs Harris in 2016. No doubt, in its cinematic form, it will find a new audience looking for something cosy and whimsical.
In fact, the film itself is not unlike Ada Harris in character: a somewhat ordinary thing with delusions of grandeur. Indeed, it’s incongruous to see Isabelle Huppert playing second fiddle to a British character actress, the former being a French legend more plausible with the aid of English subtitles. Yet the film is not without its pleasures. While everybody in Paris seems to have a pretty good grasp of English, not every translation passes muster, such as the French version of Mrs Harris’s toad-in-the-hole as “a frog in the ditch.” And it’s not all fairy tale adventures in the City of Light, with its glamorous premieres and gorgeous black models. Mrs Harris treads a thin line between being a novelty act and a joke. And she must learn to accept herself for what she is and to embrace the liberation that her self-assurance and her age brings her. That should be enough: but the film is too cloying and too dowdy to let her truly sing.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Lucas Bravo, Ellen Thomas, Rose Williams, Jason Isaacs, Anna Chancellor, Christian McKay, Freddie Fox, Guilaine Londez, Philippe Bertin, Roxane Duran, Bertrand Poncet, Dorottya Ilosvai, Vincent Martin, Igor Szász, Jeremy Wheeler.
Dir Anthony Fabian, Pro Anthony Fabian, Xavier Marchand and Guillaume Benski, Ex Pro Lesley Manville, Screenplay Carroll Cartwright, Anthony Fabian, Keith Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, Ph Felix Wiedemann, Pro Des Luciana Arrighi, Ed Barney Pilling, Music Rael Jones, Costumes Jenny Beavan, Sound Emiliyan Arnaudov and Marc Lawes, Dialect coach Tanya Blumstein.
eOne Features/Superbe Films/Moonriver Content/Hero Squared-Universal Pictures.
116 mins. UK/Hungary. US Rel: 15 July 2022. UK Rel: 30 September 2022. Cert. PG.
