Paul Glico was a prolific American author, who wrote dozens of books. The most famous of them is probably “Adventure in Poseidon” from 1969 which was adapted into a disaster film in 1972, and again in 2005. But rather an earlier and more modest book of his about the fact of cleaning England, received many more adaptations. “Flowers for Mrs. Harris” published in 1958 was adapted for television already that year. In the following years, it was used as a basis for a German film, and a TV movie starring Angela Lansbury and Diana Rigg, and in 2016 it was even adapted for a stage musical. Now a new adaptation is coming to the cinema, and it’s so cute and graceful that it’s easy to understand why people return again and again to this playful tale.
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” belongs to the tradition of lovable British comedies, often periodicals, about working-class people who briefly infiltrate the strongholds of the upper class, without breaking down walls. Such, for example, is “the duke” – about the unemployed man who stole the portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London – which has now appeared on television screens in Israel (yes, Cellcom, HOT). Ida Harris (Leslie Manville) is a sixty-year-old cleaner and war widow, living in Battersea, South London in 1957. One day Her eyes fall on a haute couture dress by Christian Dior, which her employer (who doesn’t pay her what she deserves) bought for her daughter’s wedding. Ida, a skilled seamstress herself, develops a passion for a Dior dress, and decides to save £500 to go to Paris and get one for herself, despite It is not clear what occasions she will have to wear it. In other words, Ida is both Cinderella (as her best friend playfully calls him) who works hard and dreams of going to the ball, and also the good fairy who takes care of the dress.
Ida is indeed characterized by a good compulsion. She is a generous-hearted and smiling woman, who spreads a good spirit around her, and she infects everyone she meets with this spirit, whether it is an English bookie (Jason Isaacs), drunkards at the train station in Paris, the house model of Dior (Alba Battista), In an excessively handsome accountant (Lucas Bravo from “Emily in Paris”), or in an elegant nobleman (Lambert Wilson). Only really disgusting people do not allow her light to penetrate them (in the film there are only such women).
Still, for an English cleaning worker to manage to save enough money to travel to Paris, the stars in the sky have to line up for her. After she works and works, and saves on heating, and even wins the lottery and still doesn’t manage to collect even half the amount, the stars finally align. When Ida lands in Paris, she discovers that beneath the Eiffel shining with precious light, the streets are filthy because of the garbage workers’ strike. This is how she begins to develop a class awareness that will serve her later.
Manville was known for many years for her collaboration with Mike Lee, in whose films she often portrayed sour establishment women. In 2017, she won an Oscar nomination for her performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hidden Threads, where she played the dressmaker’s tough sister, still in a supporting role. This is the first time I’ve seen her in a leading role, and it’s surprising to find out how sweet she can be. Her heartwarming performance lends emotional authenticity to the fantasy, making us believe that so many strangers would be happy to help the simple woman with the focused dream that inspires them. The main obstacle in her way is placed by the manager of the fashion house Claudine Colbert, played by Isabelle Hopper with the addition of heavy make-up (and apparently also a face lift) that make her look like a heartless mummy. It’s a rather thankless role for this great actress, who only towards the end takes off her make-up and reveals the human truth she’s been hiding.
This is the third film of Anthony Fabian, a director I have not known until now. Throughout most of the film, he balances well between the effervescent lightness and a note of sadness that is at the base of the story. In the climactic scenes, when Ida momentarily becomes the leader of the devotees breaking through closed doors, the film loses its balance a bit. But the perfect ending (which is different from the endings of the book and the adaptation from 1992 with Lansbury) restores to “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” the refinement in the balance between reality and fantasy, and brought back to me the smile that sang about them throughout its first half.
3.5 stars. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris Director: Anthony Fabian. With Leslie Manville, Isabelle Hooper, Lambert Wilson, Lucas Bravo, Jason Isaacs. Great Britain 2022, 115 min