Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a 2022 historical comedy drama film directed and produced by Anthony Fabian, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Carroll Cartwright, Keith Thompson, and Olivia Hetreed. It is the third film adaptation of the 1958 novel Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico. The film stars Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Lucas Bravo, Ellen Thomas, Rose Williams, and Jason Isaacs. The film enjoyed strong box office success in the United States arthouse circuit. Manville received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for her performance. The film also won a British Independent Film Award (BIFA) and received a nomination for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design.

Plot
In London in 1957, Mrs. Ada Harris, a widowed cleaning lady, becomes obsessed with a client's haute couture Dior dress, and longs for a similar dress of her own. After unexpectedly receiving a war widow's pension, she travels to Paris to try to purchase one. She stumbles into a showing of Dior's 10th-anniversary collection and is befriended by André, the Dior accountant, and Natasha, a Dior model. However, the Dior director, Claudine, resents Ada's intrusion into the exclusive world of haute couture and initially declines to accept Ada as a client. Fortunately for Ada, Dior has fallen on hard times and the company eventually agrees to accept a commission for payment in cash. Ada tries to order a red dress, but a high-profile client orders it before her, and she has to make do with a different style, in green. While in Paris for fittings, she stays with André and encourages him to express his affection for Natasha, who shares his interest in existential philosophy. When Claudine sacks several Dior workers for financial reasons, Ada organises a strike and forces Claudine and Christian Dior to listen to André's ideas to modernise the business.

Ada returns to London with her dress. She lends it to a client, Pamela, a struggling actress, who wears it to a social event. It catches fire and is ruined. When Ada's friends from Dior read about it in the newspaper, they send her the red dress she had originally wanted, after the buyer failed to pay. Ada wears the dress to a dance.

Production
In October 2020, it was announced that Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Jason Isaacs, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista and Lucas Bravo had joined the cast of the film, with Anthony Fabian directing and producing the film, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Caroll Cartwright, Keith Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, based upon the novel Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico. Manville was set as executive producer.

Principal photography began in October 2020. Filming took place over 40 days in Budapest, before production moved to London and Paris.

The film was supported by the National Film Institute of Hungary with 279.5M HUF.

Release
In March 2021, Focus Features acquired worldwide distribution rights to Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris for approximately $15 million and distributed the film in the United States, while parent company Universal Pictures distributed it internationally. It was released theatrically in the United States on 15 July 2022, though it was originally scheduled to be released on 6 May. It was released in the United Kingdom on 30 September 2022, in Hungary on 6 October 2022, and in France on 2 November 2022.

It was released on VOD platforms on 2 August 2022, followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on 6 September 2022.

Box office
In the United States, the film made $2 million from 980 theaters in its opening weekend; 44% of its audience were women over the age of 55. It eventually grossed more than $10 million in the United States theatrically. Deadline Hollywood described its box office performance as "strong."

Critical response
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.