A cast-iron box office hit this month is Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, a British comedy-drama that wowed audiences on its premiere in Paris in July and has been garnering positive reviews across the board. The movie is the third adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris. The previous version was released in 1992 and starred Angela Lansbury and Game of Thrones star Diana Rigg. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022) was filmed in Budapest, London, and Paris at the end of 2020 and stars Lesley Manville in the lead role.
While it might seem a poor fit for the blockbuster season, a plethora of strong performances and a winning story have made waves and generated significant word-of-mouth for the film. Here’s the skinny on the adventures of Ada Harris.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris: The Plot
Focus Features
Set in the late 1950s, Gallico’s novel features the exploits of an unassuming London cleaning lady who, while cleaning the house of a client, discovers and covets a designer dress by Dior. After unexpectedly coming into money, Mrs. Harris decides to travel to Paris on a whim and buy a Dior dress.
Inveigling her way into the haute couture fashion house by accident, she soon makes friends with model Natasha. She is assisted in her quest by the Marquis de Chassagne, a well-to-do French gentleman, who offers her his arm when she is on the verge of being thrown out and puts in a good word for her in the rarefied atmosphere of Parisian high society.
The fish-out-of-water trope is soon complicated by the revelation that the director of Dior, Claudine, plans to fire several employees due to financial constraints. Will the plucky Mrs. Harris stymie her designs and get the dress of her dreams?
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris: The Cast
Lesley Manville’s previous credits include Vera Drake, Maleficent, and Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes’ 2013 interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Her Oscar-nominated work opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in another drama set in the 1950s, Phantom Thread (2017), commends her to the role of Mrs. Harris. Her intelligent, nuanced performance may yet yield a second Academy Award nomination. Her foil is Isabelle Huppert, whose reputation as one of France’s most accomplished actors precedes her. She is perhaps best known to English-speaking audiences for her remarkable work in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (2016), which earned her a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.
Also starring is Lambert Wilson, best known for his role as the Merovingian in the Matrix trilogy but most recently seen playing General de Gaulle in the Second World War biopic of the same name. Alba Baptista, a Portuguese actor whose English-language debut, Warrior Nun, is expected to return for its second season on Netflix later this year, appears as a model for Dior, Natasha.
Rounding out the cast are Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter franchise, Star Trek: Discovery) as Archie; Anna Chancellor (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pennyworth) as Lady Dant; Sanditon star Rose Williams as Pamela Penrose; and veteran British character actor Ellen Thomas (Doctor Who, Death in Paradise) as Vi Butterfield.
Box Office Reception
Anthony Fabian’s unfussy direction is complemented by the delightful costume design courtesy of legendary designer Jenny Beavan, who picked up her third Academy Award for Best Costume Design last year for her work on Cruella). The film features a prim and proper music score from Rael Jones, which works in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris’s favor. The impression given is of a labor of love, with every period detail being attended to in order to show the journey of Mrs. Harris, wide-eyes, into post-war Paris in sharp relief. The message is not so much “all of this could be yours” so much as “seize the day.” The rootedness of the story in the humdrum environs of Harris’s day job underpins the glitz and glamour she experiences in Paris.
Feel-good cinema takes many forms, and it is not just Mrs. Harris’s willingness to stick up for the employees whose livelihoods Claudine threatens that provides the source of satisfaction for movie-goers. In a world beset by war, global warming, refugee crises, global pandemics, and poisonous politics, a film set in the sanguine 1950s about a working-class woman determined to realize dreams of a better future both for herself and for those around her might be just what we need.
Audiences in the United States certainly thought so, with the movie taking almost $4.5 million against a $9 million budget in its opening fortnight alone, and it is understood the film has already all but recouped its outlay, even though it has yet to premiere in one of the most lucrative English-language markets, the United Kingdom.
Release Date
The UK premiere is on September 30, 2022, with a French release date of November 2, 2022.
