The premise of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris might seem like the creakiest bedspring on the cobwebbiest frame: A woman travels to Paris (obviously) to buy a dress designed by iconic fashion designer Christian Dior himself. That is both the entire premise and sort of an oversimplification of co-writer/director Anthony Fabian’s surprisingly perceptive mix of low-key screwball comedy and character study, which could be in the running for the title of Nicest Movie Ever Made. The characters are pleasant, more often than not, and the conflict here is a simple one between the very good eponymous woman and a sort-of-icy-but-ultimately-sympathetic woman who just needed to widen her own perception of the world a little bit.
Within these expectations, the movie works quite well, and it helps that Ada Harris, the Mrs. in question, is played by a luminous and instantly lovable Lesley Manville. Ada – or, as we must call her from here on out, Mrs. Harris – is a plain, mousy and rather ordinary woman, living in a London flat during the waning years of the post-WWII economic boom and working as a cleaner of the houses of aristocrats. Her husband, who fought in the war, went missing in action years ago, and finally a confirmation of his death during an accounting of death notices has reached her. With the dreaded news, though, comes a consolation of sorts: she should have been paid in the interim as a war widow, even with the lack of confirmation, and now the Royal government owes her approximately 15 years of back pay.
At the same time, several strokes of good fortune hit Mrs. Harris at the same time – such as a desperate bid on a dog race yielding more than she thought it would – as this windfall of what she was owed. Her employer has modeled a lovely Dior gown (a “frock,” as Mrs. Harris later amusingly calls it) on a chair in her room, and the sight of it is enough to send Mrs. Harris into a frenzy. On the tail-end of her good fortune, then, she figures that she might like a little treat – something that she can do for herself after a lifetime of work doing things for others. In this case, it means traveling by air to Paris and buying that very dress from the House of Dior, and she receives encouragement from friends Vi (Ellen Thomas) and Archie (Jason Isaacs) to do so.
The plot is as simple as it sounds, and smartly, Fabian and co-screenwriters Carroll Cartwright, Keith Thompson and Olivia Hetreed (bringing to life a character created by author Paul Gallico, though not exactly adapting the book of a similar name) don’t complicate it in any major way once she arrives in Paris to fulfill her task. At first, as one can imagine, there is confusion about this simple woman, with her uninspiring personal wardrobe, arriving with bundles of money to buy what many believe she can buy in a store. Once her purpose becomes clearer, though, no one seems particularly excited about selling the dress to her.
At the forefront of the fight (if one can call it that) against the transaction is Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), the right-hand woman to Dior, who sees the very prospect as a horrifying betrayal of the culture of haute couture. This is barely even a conflict, though, as Colbert’s iciness eventually melts to reveal certain insecurities. The main plot threads follow an eventual labor uprising (while a garbage strike takes place on the streets outside), as well as the romantic entanglement of André Fauvel (Lucas Bravo), Dior’s head financier, and Natasha (Alba Baptista), the top model of Dior’s fashions. Mrs. Harris, meanwhile, meets and becomes quite taken with fellow widow (or widower) the Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson).
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is both safe in its intentions and predictable in the outcomes of its many plot details. The film works, though, primarily by being so nice, so unassuming, and so good-natured that it overcomes any impulse to shrug at the fluffiness of it all.
Photo courtesy of Focus Features
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