Critics reviews

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is the kind of heartwarming, escapist celebration of the concept of shopping yourself happy that should be prescribed along with HRT patches. Unfortunately, undeniably likable as it is, for all its sparkly charm and mangled chunks of Sartrean philosophy, it’s just not especially good.

There’s such a lovely sweet-natured sense of fun in this Cinderella tale, a multicoloured confection like something that Fortnum & Mason might put in the shop window. Manville carries it off with absolute conviction... Preposterous though it may be, this is a terrific family movie in a style audiences may not have seen since Mary Poppins

It’s a thoroughly pleasant if flimsy film – a sleeper hit already in America’s sleepy arthouses – with a distinct perfume of nostalgia wafted towards us... Like the workhorse she’s always been, Cinderella helps this latest spin get by, while also tempting it to lay back and idle along.

Like [Paddington], [Mrs. Harris's] storybook world is so well drawn and its sense of humour so infectious that it’s near impossible not to fall for its upbeat charms... It may sound dismissive to call a film ‘nice’, but that’s exactly what this is. It’s beautifully produced, entirely uncynical niceness.

Nothing wrong with a movie in today’s troubled winter of discontent that exists solely for the purpose of creating joy and good will, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris spreads them around like butter.

This is a story about following one’s dreams and then learning there’s a lesson attached to those dreams—you might catch more than a perfume whiff of sanctimoniousness here. But it’s rare to find movies that value the mere idea of beauty, and [Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris] does so unapologetically.

it would be shortsighted to hastily dismiss Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris as sentimental escapist fare that quickly evaporates into the ether of silly romanticism. Manville’s nuanced emotional inflections... linger in their simple honesty, hitching the film to a heart-bound reality in contradiction to the unreality of a fanciful fable with a flip nod toward Sartrean philosophy.

A featherweight meringue of a movie so sweet it threatens to float away on its own sugar high, if not for the sheer generosity of the story's premise and luminous commitment of its lead actress.

In any other setting, the film’s farfetched ending... would garner nothing but eye rolls. But in the fable-esque world that Fabian builds, it feels just right, even rightfully deserved. The world isn’t the happiest place to be these days, so why not cheer a little bit for a wholesome, decent character in a lovely dress?

“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” stretches a bit to make high and low meet harmoniously, but it often manages the feat, thanks especially to Manville. As a force of British charm, you could imagine her Ada one day teaming up with Paddington.

Despite its gleeful showcasing of beautiful clothes and vibrant midcentury Parisian sights, the film is caught between its fantasies and its principles, landing somewhere more annoyingly clueless — and dull — than it ought to be.

The film swirls around Manville’s charismatically authentic performance as Mrs. Harris. It wouldn’t be as believable or as charming without her in the role, and she holds the center with ease, the perfect subject (not mannequin) on which to build the frothy fashion delight that is “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris,” an escape we all deserve.