Film Review - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Images courtesy of the 2022 Cunard British Film Festival.

Seated in-cinema for the premiere of the 2022 Cunard British Film Festival (with my grazing box of bread, ham, cheddar, and pickles), I was encouraged to remain in situ by the Festival Curator as we heard from himself and a few representatives of festival sponsors. He acknowledged, of course, the crowd’s probable desire to get to the film itself: “you’re all busting to see what happens to Mrs. Harris in Paris”. Touché. 

The film, reaching Australian cinemas this Thursday the 27th of October, depicts a series of events including, but not limited to, Lesley Manville’s widowed charwoman character Mrs. Ada Harris engaging in a journey that takes her to, and around, the French capital of Paris. Based on Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris (In Review readers will doubtlessly be pleased to hear there are three sequels which mimic the original’s title structure: …to New York, …to Moscow, and the eyebrow-raising …to Parliament), the narrative finds that character heading for that location so that she may purchase a dress from the House of Dior. 

Any anguish over the cruel, barbaric addition of the letter H to the title of the cinematic adaptation must be quickly set aside, as the film is determined to show you a good time. As a labourer who lacks the refinement of her prim upper-crust employers, the notion of Mrs. Harris going to Paris, and buying for herself a piece of such raw cultural capital as a Dior dress, makes for an underdog story with inherent crowd-pleasing potential. Add to that its lavish 1950s period setting, Mrs. Harris’s salt-of-the-earth one-liners (“you have the proportions of a model!” “a model railway more like”), and a very treacly score, and the film comes together as an effective, well-oiled charmer that has already done very well as a feel-good bit of blockbuster counter-programming in the U.S. market. 

I won’t be the first to make this comparison, but the Paris-going Mrs. Harris is something of a Paddington-esque figure, what with her fish-out-of-water arrival in a new location and messianic betterment of the lives of all whom she encounters. Lesley Manville, in the lead role, is the foundation on which everything here is built: she is pitch-perfect as the unassuming-yet-gutsy woman who would make her own fashion manager character from Phantom Thread choke on her tea. In particular, you can set aside all of the Mrs.-‘Arris-ness and the cockney accent, and be entirely sucked in by Manville’s physicality. She has this wonderful little-old-lady waddle, and she’s marvellous in a close-up: wide-eyed and blinking when the film needs to sell big moments of shock (just ignore the fact that they opt for multiple comically-extreme dolly zooms). 

It’s also the effect on others around her that’s so crucial to this character’s power, though. For as much as this is a film in which Mrs. Harris goes to Paris, it is also a film in which Mrs. Harris corrals a workplace into a labour strike (“as sure as eggs is eggs, without us, all goes tits up”). A key plotline concerns two young, absurdly attractive Dior employees who just can’t see how much they belong together until Mrs. Harris does what she does best (goes to Paris). She is genuinely winning, and it’s the backbone of the story.

For all of the feel-good clichés, the film does actually have some moments of admirable nuance – of challenging the expectations of the audience, be they ever so eager to see Mrs. Harris go to Paris. Ada has her own romantic entanglement with an affable, wealthy French Marquis – which takes a turn that reminds us of the limits of this wish-fulfilment fantasy. Likewise, the all-important Dior dress comes under threat towards the final act of the film.

It seems for a moment as if, like how the narrative in fact does unfold in the novel, a lesson is being learned here about the value of lived experience over material possession, as Ada is forced to take comfort simply in the people and pleasures she encountered on her trip. Perhaps the real Going To Paris was the friends that Mrs. Harris made along the way. This complication is revealed to be but a setback, however, and our narrative ends on a roundly mollifying, cheery note. This is an effective film, but not a subversive one, and in truth that’s probably enough. All’s fair in love and war, and also in Mrs. Harris going to Paris. 

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris screened at the 2022 Cunard British Film Festival, and is screening in wider cinemas from Thursday 27th October. For tickets and more info, click here.