“Emily in Paris for geriatrics”. That’s what cruel commentators may be inclined to label this Cinderella-ish tale, based on a 1958 Paul Gallico novella about a Battersea cleaning lady. Luckily, with the fantastic Lesley Manville as said charwoman, nothing is quite what it seems.
The book’s Ada Harris is a selfless and gutsy widow who falls in love with one of her client’s Dior dresses. When she arrives in Paris, all set to buy a frock with her hard-earned cash, she impresses an open-minded Marquis, endears herself to practically every Dior employee she meets and is rewarded for her fairy godmother-ish ways with... flowers. She never gets to swan around in her gown. It’s gutting!
In Mrs ‘Arris goes to Paris, the spectacularly camp 90s TV movie, Angela Lansbury’s Ada has a bit more fun. She and the Marquis (Omar Sharif) scratch each other’s backs, albeit in a platonic way, and Ada gets to wear her beautiful dress, before returning to her dingy digs. The ballgown, dangling from a hanger in Ada’s London kitchen, performs a magical little jiggle. That’s the happy ending.
This time around, it’s still the 1950s, but Ada, as well as being a talented seamstress, has a working libido (she’s attracted to two men, including Lambert Wilson’s Marquis de Chassagne, who’s been royally screwed up by his upbringing). She also hangs out with fans of the left-wing intellectual, Jean-Paul Sartre, organises a workers’ strike, is defended by an out-and-proud communist and single-handedly circumvents the snobbery of Isabelle Huppert’s Dior manager, Madame Colbert.
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris could never be mistaken for a Ken Loach polemic. But whilst showing us a lot of pretty frocks, it gets awfully close to giving the finger to feudalism.
A note on the frocks. The majority of them (whether recreations of Dior “New Look” classics or originals designed by three-time Oscar-winner Jenny Beavan) are sublime. But one dresscoat resembles a tiny and poorly assembled tent. Or a giant tea cosy. Either way, it’s horrid. Ada, thank goodness, gravitates towards two outfits cut from a different cloth and, in the film’s suspenseful last third, everything works out in a way that’s utterly delightful.
Years ago, when I told a friend I was naming my daughter, Ada, they were horrified and said, “That sounds like the name of a cleaning lady!” Here’s to Manville’s Ada, a woman who knows you’re never too old – or too working class – to be one of the happiest belles at the ball.
115mins, cert PG
