There is a softness of touch and a warmness at the core of Anthony Fabian’s 2022 adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 50’s novel of the same name (if you drop the ‘h’, with it originally being “Mrs ‘Arris goes to Paris). Now there is nothing outstanding about the film which is a shame, bar perhaps Lesley Manville’s lead performance, however this Capra-esque tale of a London widowed cleaner coming to Paris and making everybody better and happier not unlike Paddington bear is the sort of stuff that makes the afternoon Lady in the Van crowd overjoyed. Now if you give in to its absolute sincerity, you may very well enjoy it yourself. I certainly did.
The story is almost shamelessly hopeful and filled with ideal things falling into place, however one can’t help but root and fall for our titular heroine of Mrs Harris as she goes about her dream of going to Paris to buy a Christian Dior dress. Lesley Manville as the eponymous Mrs Harris is pitch perfect as this bubbly and wonderful vision of hope and happiness against great woes and troubles. Her tale is one of virtue and her tale is one of resilience and so the convolutions of the plot to grant her wish are all forgivable, because we are of course dreaming for her too. Overall the tale is a simple one, of this widowed women travelling to Paris in the hopes of purchasing a dress only for everything to go wrong, only for her goodness to lead everything to go right. Fabian directs the film with a delicateness and a montage sensibility for the most part that keeps the pace and propels a film that should never have been two hours long, to not exactly feel the full breadth of its length, just feel a little saggy around the edges. Overall Fabians work is no extra-ordinary talent, however it is of a subtle craft that makes the adaptation to screen a successful one for the most part.
 |
| Credit |
Beyond Manville the performances around her are all seemingly imbued by her warmth and capability, not that these aren’t incredible capable actors in their own right, but more so instead that Manville’s wonderful turn seemingly brings everybody onto the same page. Isabelle Huppert as a stubborn manager at Dior is the toughest nut to crack for Harris, but of course one can see where her arc will go from a mile off, all the same Huppert gives a bluntness and dark charm to the character. Lambert Wilson (another Verhoven alum following on from Huppert) is the charming and debonair French wealthy widower who takes on a courting of Harris and is charming with complete maturity, making for a character of little narrative friction, but a nice and touching sharing of grief and hope. Alba Baptista and Lucas Bravo (who checking his credits I have only now just recognised as the pilot from Ticket to Paradise, an actor of good range it seems) make for the budding romance sub-plot and make it as nice and hopeful as you’d expect. Hope and all things of that nature are the core for the film and in that sense it more than succeeds. There are many a great turn similarly back in the London portions of the film that bookend our tale, that make our time prior to the plot proper commencing just as enjoyable as once the adventure begins. Is it a film I will return to? Probably not. Is it a film I regret seeing? No, at all. Hell, I’d even recommend it. No film of recent has ever been exactly what it says on the page, so if the poster or the like appealed to you, I’m certain the film will too. However don’t expect much more than what you would expect.
A delightful if un-inspired 6/10 that has a stellar Manville performance leading the audience through a standard heart-warming tale that we may have seen before, but doesn’t make this any less delightful. It may seem patronising to adorn this film with the sorts of adjectives you would a nice cardigan or the like, “delightful”, “heart-warming”, “sweet”, “cute”, that sort of thing. But that really is the best way to describe this touching, if a little trite film. Perhaps it’s best element is its frequent truthfulness, the film never ends up shamelessly saccharin, not once, and for that perhaps it is above the rest of its ilk who so often fail to strike that balance.
P.S. Whether Intentional or not this maybe the most bizarre and yet perfect double bill with Phantom Thread. Huppert is effectively playing the same role as Manville played in Thread, the setting inside the house of Dior looks almost identical in regards to the decor and design to the House of Woodcock. Now of course it would be a pairing of two vastly different natures, but still a nice double bill if you like clashing genres.
- - Thomas Carruthers
0 Comments