Rent Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022)

A Gentle & Delightful Comedy - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris review by GI

A light comedy of manners with a clash of cultures theme that has a warmth and gentleness making for a quite lovely film. Starring Lesley Manville, another British treasure and superb actress, who gives the titular role just the right touches throughout the entire film. Set in the late 1950s and Mrs Harris is a war widow who makes her living as a cleaner for hire. She dreams of one day owning a Christian Dior dress to wear to the local hop and she diligently saves her money where she can sometimes with a surprise small football pools win and sometimes losing on a silly bet at the greyhound racing. Eventually she scrapes together enough and heads off to Paris where she is a fish out of water. The script is gentle enough not to try and wring every joke out of the language barriers or the cultural shocks between the French and English that Mrs Harris encounters. The film is more concerned with showing how Mrs Harris' natural warmth, innocence and kindness wins people over even though she can be roused to action if the situation demands. Her main adversary in the story is Claudine (Isabelle Huppert), the Dior manager who sees her as a threat to their rich clients but even this tetchy relationship is not the focus of the narrative which remains one about kindness and humanity. This is just a pleasant almost Disneyesque film that leaves you smiling at the end and it's worth an evenings viewing.

An absolute gem! - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris review by Champ

This is simply one of the loveliest, happiest, most uplifting films I have seen in a very long time. I loved it so much I watched it a second time a couple of days later, this time with my mum (who is in her 80s), as I knew she'd love it too (and I was right, she did). I cry quite easily at films, but this one was definitely a three tissue movie! But they were happy tears, not sad.

Lesley Manville is in almost every scene, and completely carries the film. She really should have won some awards for this performance. But the rest of the cast are uniformly excellent.

Sentimental 'Up-Lit' Positive Drama Based on Book by Paul Gallico - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris review by PV

I have to admit I did not finish this. I did know the story, written by great writer Paul Gallico, American but lived in UK for decades. The best writer on cats EVER - things like THE SILENT MIAOW and JENNIE and THE ABANDONED. Also wrote THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and made a fortune, moved to Monaco in early 70s, died 1976.

There is an old film of this with Angela Lansbury I think, TV movie 1992 which is fun, and now a new musical too. Probably for a female audience really. Very sentimental and heart-warming, so if you are in the mood for that, this is for you.

As I knew the story and had seen the older film, I decided I'd had enough!

It is what it is! If you like fashion, clothes, slushy positive stories, this is for you.