Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

A film set in 1950s London, turning around a dress. Ada Harris works as a cleaner. Her husband was lost in the war and she has been waiting for news for years. One day she sees a Dior dress in one of the houses she cleans and sets her mind on it: she will have one of her own. She saves, gambles, takes extra work, and finally goes to Paris. At the house of Dior she does not get the reception she expected. It is a place that chooses its customers and a cleaner is not counted as one. Ada does not step back. The second line is the fashion house's own situation: the business is losing money, the seamstresses are talking about organising, and the order has to change. The narrative treats class in a comic register; Ada is angry with nobody, and precisely because of that the people around her begin to notice their own behaviour. The source is Paul Gallico's novel. Lesley Manville plays Ada and Isabelle Huppert the directress of the house. The costume design is the film's visual spine and rests on the Dior archive of the period. A pleasant choice for anyone who likes light period films and warm narratives built on class. For a viewer expecting hard criticism, the film softens its conflicts and ties everything off well.