MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS: nothing wrong with a dose of sentimentality once in a while

Photo caption: Alba Baptista and Lesley Manville in MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS. Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2021 Ada Films Ltd – Harris Squared Kft.

In the goodhearted Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Lesley Manville plays the titular character, a war widow who cleans houses in 1957 London. Although there is nothing in her hardscrabble circumstance that seems to justify her bubbly hopefulness, we in the audience know that everything is going to work out. This is an unabashed Feel Good movie.

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is an unchallenging, fluffy film and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It is well-crafted and well-acted, especially by Manville.

Lesley Manville has amassed a distinguished body of work in Mike Leigh films alone: Secrets & Lies, Topsy-Turvy, High Hopes, All or Nothing, Vera Drake, and, most brilliantly, in Another Year. She was Oscar-nominated for Phantom Thread.

The great Isabelle Huppert plays the sourpuss role that Lesley Manville often plays in Mike Leigh films. I’m always glad to see Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye, even in the one-dimensional roles they’ve gotten in the past two years.

The one singular segment of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a depiction of the opening for the 1957 Dior collection. I have little (maybe no) interest in fashion, but I was riveted.

I wasn’t planning to see this movie, but The Wife really felt like sitting in a movie theater, which I always encourage. Although I had predicted the the ending within 30 minutes, it wasn’t a painful experience.

Nothing wrong with a dose of sentimentality once in a while. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is in theaters.

Another Year

Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) has brought us another brilliant observation of the human condition, and asks why some people find contentment and others just cannot.  The film observes a year in the life of a happily married couple (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen).  They generously host their friends and family; the couple (and we the audience)  pick up insights about the visitors – variously scarred by unhappy circumstance, cluelessness and self-destructiveness.

Mike Leigh may be the cinema’s best director of actors, and Another Year is filled with excellent performances, especially Broadbent and Sheen, David Bradley and Peter Wight. The wonderful Imelda Staunton drops in with a searing cameo at the beginning of the film.  But Lesley Manville has the flashiest role – and gives the most remarkable performance – as a woman whose long trail of bad choices hasn’t left her with many options for a happy life.

Another Year is one of Leigh’s best.