Ideal fit for 2022
MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS
Cert PG ★★★★ In cinemas now
This bear hug of a movie offers an escape from a grim autumn especially if you didn’t get away on holiday this summer. Lesley Manville is known as one of our best character actresses but she shines with a rare leading role in this beautifully spun yarn from director Anthony Fabian.
The plot, taken from Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel Mrs ’Arris Goes to Paris, is a simple one. Ada Harris (Manville), a widowed cleaning lady living in 1950s London, comes across one of her clients’ couture Christian Dior gowns. The screen wobbles as if she’s swooning, like when beautiful strangers exchange glances in romantic dramas.
Now, she has a sense of purpose. She must have a gown of her own. Not out of envy, or a desire to climb the social ladder. Because she’s madly in love with the dress itself. As it costs £500, winning the object of her affections will require decades of scrubbing. But fate magically intervenes as a flurry of happy coincidences, from a pools win to a lost-and-found reward, send her on a plane to Paris with a handbag of cash.
“Where’s the frocks?” she chirps after another lucky break allows her to breeze past the gatekeepers at Dior’s salon. Isabelle Huppert’s snooty manager looks like she’s just swallowed a needle until Ada flashes the cash.
The esteemed fashion house is in trouble and, after booking her first fitting, Ada plays cupid to two attractive twenty-somethings (Lucas Bravo and Alba Baptista) and wins an aristocratic admirer (Lambert Wilson). It’s all massively implausible but Manville keeps Ada grounded, seamlessly balancing comedic and dramatic elements.
As in the Paddington movies, old-fashioned themes underpin Fabian’s glamorous fantasy. It’s about the triumph of fairness over greed, kindness over prejudice and common sense over flummery. This 1950s throwback feels tailor-made for a much-needed escape from 2022.
It’s about the triumph of fairness over greed and kindness over prejudice