OUT NOW: Mrs Harris Goes To Paris

After a stroke of good fortune, hard-working Mrs Harris (Lesley Manville) takes a trip to Paris where she dreams of purchasing a Christian Dior gown.

Now this is a real superhero movie.

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris may not feature any special effects or action, but it does feature plenty of colourful outfits and good people standing up for what is right, and looking out for other people.

If that is not the essence of a superhero, I do not know what is.

I am only half-joking. While she does have a knack for wanting to help anyone who crosses her path, Mrs Harris is very ordinary.

For the first few minutes I was on guard for this movie.

Everything about it felt a little treacle - even the filmmaking felt a little unpolished, with flat compositions and a weird emphasis on shots with shallow focus

But by the time Mrs Harris made it you-know-where, I was won over.

This is a genuinely sweet movie. 

Part of the reason is that Mrs Harris is never presented as a saintly figure to repair everyone she encounters. That is an image image imposed on her by people who see her inherent decency as a vehicle for their own comfort.

The movie is ultimately about Mrs Harris refusing to let other people’s judgements of her stand, whether it is the overt hostility of Dior’s head honcho Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), or the subtle classism of a seemingly benign nobleman (Lambert Wilson) who takes a shine to her.

Mrs Harris supports other people in their struggles and shows genuine empathy for other people.

She spends the movie trying to achieve a modest dream, and just when it feels like her natural kindness has led her down a path of misery, it is repaid.

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris handles its subject with a delicate and knowing touch, knowing that genuine hope and empathy can only exist in proximity to their opposites.

Paris is a romantic place, but it is also a place where people live, and where piles of garbage signify the struggles of people like Mrs Harris to achieve a good life.

There is a strange melancholy to watching this movie in 2022. With its portrayal of a postwar England engaging with Europe, and the way it depocts old structures of class and privilege shifting, the weary optimism of Mrs Harris Goes To Paris stands in stark contrast to the circus of the present.