Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Nothing wrong with a movie in today’s troubled winter of discontent that exists solely for the purpose of creating joy and good will, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris spreads them around like butter.

It may sound dismissive to call a film ‘nice’, but that’s exactly what this is. It’s beautifully produced, entirely uncynical niceness. If you’re after just a lovely time, come on in and put your feet up.

Directed by Anthony Fabian and written by Fabian, Carroll Cartwright, Leigh Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris masterfully achieves every note essential in a captivating underdog story.

In the tradition of Britain’s class comedies, what makes Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris comes down to the difference between, say, your average fashion designer and someone like Dior: with a pattern, anyone can make clothes—but in Manville’s hands, she stitches together something magical.

“Mrs. Harris” goes down like a sugary amuse-bouche of entertainment — it won’t make a lasting impression but it’s the perfect thing for the moment.

It’s unabashed froth, as substantial as a tulle skirt. And perhaps that’s exactly what we need right now.

This world of entirely nice people seems like a trite fantasy — trite because the movie never makes you believe it. But it does makes you want to believe it, and so, like a lot of these movies, it takes you halfway there.

A delightful story about one woman's dream, and how being helpful to those around her results in good karma for her.

It is nice, really too nice. Nothing that looks remotely believable. Except the beauty of the Dior dresses.

Lesley Manville plays a widowed cleaning lady in 1950s London, who saves up to travel to the House of Dior to buy her own gown. Manville keeps a smiling, upbeat attitude, encountering absurdly friendly events that make her trip so incredible. There's a nod to strife, but overall this is a sweet tale from the optimistic mindset of the period. Of note is the fashion show that features 5 beautiful Dior originals and numerous others in the designer's style. People who are looking for a relentlessly amiable escape may enjoy this lite little trifle.

(Mauro Lanari) I haven't understood why Mrs. Harris' social redemption would coincide with the dream of havin' a haute couture garment, when then the ending would seem to disavow it: at the ball Archie falls in love with her and I believe regardless of Dior dress. A feel-good movie incomprehensible in its dynamic: elderly Cinderella, Mary Poppins, Capra's almost identical title "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" have a clear, precise and defined purpose, while this case looks more like the adult fable of an "Amélie" who makes naïve superficiality and obtuse optimism her survival strategy, going so far as to overturn Sartre and the existential crisis on an occasion so that a shy couple find the courage to talk to each other and kiss.

A shallow, mawkish film with paper thin characters that inhabit a disturbingly diverse 1957 London & Paris. I'd hoped this may have been similar to the charming Shirley Valentine (1989) but alas, this is an empty, flaccid reminder of how good British films used to be - 2 stars