Lindsey Lowson / 31 March 2025 / Categories: Movie and TV Shows, Movie

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris Disappointing Review

Should have been made by Disney not Universal

What the hell Universal. This is a kids movie for Grandmas. Bedknobs and Broomsticks meets Nanny McPhee. That is a fecious

comparison. Suffice to say I endured it all the way through but wasn’t anywhere near the movie I was expecting from the marketing.

Why is it when you finally make a female led movie about fashion it’s been 15 years since the Devil Wears Prada in 2010 does it turn out to be as wet and insipid as a cold milky cup of tea. Exactly what the film tries to elevate as Mrs Ada Harris a cleaning lady from London has afternoon tea with a Marquis who gets her into a private showing of a House of Dior Collection. He’s a widow and attends the fashion shows because he likes the clothes and the girls he confesses.

Mrs Harris thinks he likes her too as she accepts his invite after the show to tea only to discover she reminds him of a kind cleaner/dinner lady he had become attached to while attending boarding school in the UK.

Mrs Harris goes to Paris, the movie was inspired by the 1958 book of the same title by Paul Gallico who wrote over 40 books, four about his heroine Mrs Harris.

For me the film starring Lesley Manville as Mrs Harris and Isabelle Huppert as Madame Colbert (in charge at the House of Dior) was completely limited in depth, linear,

Uninteresting and stereotypical when it comes how women are perceived in the 21st century. This concept of women being subjugated to a secondary life controlled by men is amplified because the story is set in 1957, 13 years after the end of the Second World War which is significant to the story.

We said half way through when the movie was over we would regret investing the time to watch it in its entirety and we did.

It’s female led.

It’s about fashion.

It’s a love story.

Not quite Mills and Boon or Catherine Cookson format but not far off.

I watched it yesterday and I cannot actually remember the ending, ah yes I can. I won’t tell you just in case you find yourself watching it after all.