Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022 | UK | 115 minutes | Anthony Fabian)
The adjective I can’t escape when thinking about the new movie Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is “delightful.” It’s a charming little mid-century, working-class, romantic comedy led by the wonderful Lesley Manville that is just a joy to watch.
Manville, playing the antithesis of the character she played in another mid-century costume drama, The Phantom Thread, is an English house cleaner named Ada Harris pining for her husband to return from World War II. It’s been a while before she gets the unfortunate news that he won’t be and she is officially widowed. She turns her focus to finding something that will make her happy: a personally-fitted fancy Christian Dior dress from Paris. Such a dress will cost her around $500 (adjusted for inflation, it would be around $7 gazillion in today’s dollars) and she begins saving up. It isn’t long before she has enough money saved up and heads to France.
The high fashion world is much different from Ada’s day-to-day life and the storied House of Dior doesn’t know what to make of this frumpy, middle-aged woman who wants to cosplay in designer clothes. Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert, also a pleasure to watch act), head of the Dior brand, is her nemesis because is protective of the brand’s fancy-pants image. But when it’s revealed that she has the cash on hand to make such a purchase, the Dior accountant (played by Lucas Bravo) is all for accommodating Mrs. Harris and invites her to stay with him until all of her fittings can be completed. An extremely wealthy Frenchman, Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson), invites her to be his guest as the new line of Dior dresses is being shown off for VIPs. Spoiler alert: there are some bumps along the way but she gets her dress.
The 1950’s Paris Anthony Fabian created for this movie is so gorgeous to look at and the dresses from costume designer Jenny Beavan are incredible. She has eleven Oscar nominations (three wins) and I would be very shocked if this movie doesn’t at least get her a twelfth nomination.
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a fairy tale for adults, and correspondingly, it has an ending that couldn’t physically be wrapped up any more neatly. That might bother me with a lesser movie but this was so much fun to watch and any more criticism would feel unnecessary. Sometimes it’s just nice to have nice things.
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris opens in theaters on Friday, July 15.
Header image courtesy Focus Features