Review: 'Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris' is a sweet, light French bonbon, and a showcase for the great Lesley Manville

A working-class Englishwoman has a French adventure in “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” a whimsical confection of cross-cultural disagreements that would fly off into a hundred directions if not for the justly acclaimed actor Lesley Manville keeping it all together.

Manville plays Ada Harris, a war widow who cleans other people’s homes in London, circa 1957. One day, she sees something in a wardrobe of one of her clients: A beautiful gown, designed by Christian Dior. The client tells Mrs. Harris the dress cost 500 pounds — and even though it’s a pipe dream for a woman of Mrs. Harris’ social standing, it becomes her dream to go to Paris and buy a dress at the House of Dior.

A few lucky coincidences later, and Mrs. Harris has the money to travel to Paris and buy a Dior dress. She arrives just as Monsieur Dior is about to show his newest line, for the company’s 10th anniversary. The house’s imperious director, Mme. Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), wants to throw Mrs. Harris — but she’s stopped by André Fauvel (Lucas Bravo), the studio’s accountant, who notices Mrs. Harris has something the upper-crust clients almost never have: Wads of cash, a commentary on the super-rich’s ability to get away without paying for things.

A kind nobleman, Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson, from the “Matrix” franchise), escorts Mrs. Harris into the exhibition. There, she becomes enraptured by the dozens of gorgeous gowns Monsieur Dior has designed. She picks her dream dress, then finds out that a snooty rich woman, Mme Avallon (Guilaine Londez), has snapped up exclusive rights to it. Undaunted, Mrs. Harris selects her second favorite — then is surprised to learn she can’t just buy a Dior off the rack, but must stay in Paris a week for fittings.

Extending her visit, Mrs. Harris finds that Paris is for lovers. For starters, that Marquis keeps buying her roses. To distract herself from that, Mrs. Harris works to pair up André with Natasha (Alba Baptista), Dior’s top model and, like Andre, a reader of Jean-Paul Sartre. 

Unlike Sartre, though, there’s nothing in director Anthony Fabian’s frothy confection to be taken too seriously. With three co-writers working with him on the screenplay, adapting Paul Gallico’s novel, Fabian presents a luminous fantasy version of Paris of a certain time, when a woman with enough pluck could cut through the class and national barriers that are keeping her from following her dreams.

The story has all the earmarks of a silly made-for-TV movie — and, in fact, it was that on CBS in 1992, as a vehicle for Angela Lansbury, cashing in her “Murder, She Wrote” chip with the network.

The casting is what puts this movie into more refined territory. Huppert is perfectly imperious as Mme. Colbert, the last bastion of Dior’s tradition of elegance. And Mrs. Harris has a strong supporting section back in London, led by Jason Isaacs as a kind-hearted bookie.

In the end, though, “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is a showcase for Manville, who has earned a shot at being a leading lady after years of great supporting performances in Mike Leigh movies, as well as Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread.” Manville radiates all the late-in-life hopes and dreams of this no-nonsense cleaning lady, turning an “invisible” person into someone everyone has to stop to admire.

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‘Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris’

★★★

Opens Friday, July 15, in several theaters. Rated PG for suggestive material, language and smoking. Running time: 115 minutes.