Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

Perhaps the most genuinely sweet movie of the year, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris manages to delight us with its brilliant, uncalculated simplicity. It's a realistic fairytale, one that combines its colorful fantasy with grounded emotions and relatable conflicts, adapted from a similarly titled novel from the middle of the last century. Essentially the story of an older, working woman in London who dreams of owning a single Dior gown, the film follows her life as it takes a Willy Wonka-esque turn and she finds herself spending a week in Paris in the hopes of her own haute couture. Think The Devil Wears Prada meets Phantom Thread but without a lick of unnecessary drama and with a lot more heartwarming cuteness.

Ada is a war widow, working as a domestic cleaner for various clients, saving her pennies in a glass jar, and played by the exquisite -- but here disarmingly earnest -- Lesley Manville. Manville also featured as a much more villainous role in Phantom Thread, which is almost hilariously hard to forget about as we see her quaint frocks and eccentric twitchiness in this film. She works hard to sell the film's primary conceit, and she succeeds magnificently: that is, that a hardworking woman who is by no means a spring chicken would spend her entire life savings on a single designer dress. She's so simple (and I mean that endearingly) that she thinks she can simply go to a fashion show and purchase any dress she sees, regardless of its size or fitting.

But Ada's got stars in her eyes, and in many ways her quest for fashion is an expression of her own self-love, something she seems to feel she needs to earn still. But we see right away that she loves people around her with an endless supply of affection, from the self-absorbed young wannabe actress she cares for to the philandering businessmen and his cadre of "nieces" who pay him frequent visits. But Ada already has some fashion sense, and the film firmly earns its own Oscar nomination for costumes, as she's never less than dressed to the nines, usually in comparatively cringe-worthy floral prints. From her late husband's pension to her hopeful bets on dog races, she eventually saves enough money for her excursion to Paris, helped along by her charming friends (played by Jason Isaacs in a rare sympathetic role and the blissfully lovely Ellen Thomas). 

She quite literally stumbles into the House of Dior and a new fashion show, meeting new friends along the way (including a handsome young accountant played by Lucas Bravo and a beautiful young model played by Alba Baptista, who share a love for existential philosophy and who Ada will be helping get together as a de facto matchmaker). Ada also makes at least one new enemy in the form of house manager Claudine (a wickedly delightful Isabelle Huppert, much as Manville herself played in Phantom Thread). As Ada realizes she must stay for the week -- for measurements and tailorings -- she settles in with her friends, navigates flirtations by a very eligible Marquis (Lambert Wilson), and matchmakes with nothing but positivity and kindness in her heart. She ends up saving Dior (in a scene wonderfully reminiscent of one from a personal favorite musical, Mrs. Santa Claus, in all its surprisingly economically progressive glory). 

But I won't spoil the logistical details for you, because half the joy of this movie is going on the adventure with our unlikely heroine. There are a few sad turns, but by and large, this is the breath of fresh air we always need during Oscar season, both as a balm for the usually thematically heavy awards contenders as well as the bleak midwinter blues. Thank you, Mrs. Harris, and director Anthony Fabian, for uplifting our hearts with your warmth and beauty in a world too easily gone to rot.