Mrs Harris Goes to Paris  – sweet, completely charming and hugely likeable film

A little kindness goes a very, very long way in this charming almost-fairy tale of a widowed 1950s cleaning lady. Ada Harris leads a tough life cleaning for various people who roundly ignore her, oblivious to pretty much her every thought and feeling. And then she sees it, hanging up in the wardrobe of Lady Muck who can’t even be bothered to pay her: a gorgeous Dior dress. And that’s when Mrs Harris dares to dream, and she certainly dreams big.

Amid all the drabness and drudgery of her humdrum life, Ada suddenly wants a piece of glamour way, way beyond her means. And so she scrimps and saves and gambles disastrously to raise the dosh to fly off to Paris to buy a dress for herself. This is where we start to see the transformative effect of her endless decency and sheer human kindness. Just as everything starts to go wrong, then everything starts to go right as the film starts to tell us that good things happen to good people.

And so Mrs Harris turns up at the House of Dior where not even the ghastly snottiness with which she is initially greeted can dent her hopes. Ada continues to charm everyone from tramps in the Gare du Nord to a dashing widowed marquis; from the handsome financial boss to the unsettled Dior model, both of whom, it seems, want nothing better than to chat about the finer points of Sartre and his brand of existentialism – if only they realised it. But don’t worry. Guess who’s going to help the penny drop.

The evocation of 1950s Paris is beautifully done – as beautiful as Lesley Manville’s performance as the Mrs Harris of the title, an indomitable force for good, selfless to a fault, always giving, always helping those around her to find their true path (well, maybe not the ghastly people she cleans for back in London. Why, she even empowers Dior to completely transform itself in a way which will rescue it from its damaging insistence on its own exclusivity. She democratises Dior just as she democratises everyone around her. And yet the knocks still keep on coming…

Manville is perfect in this genuinely charming piece, the tale of a woman who is far far too good for her own good but maybe somehow will reap the rewards. Jason Isaacs, Lucas Bravo and Alba Baptista are excellent as the people who tumble into her orbit and are variously changed by her. It’s twee at times, but you’ll be happy to forgive it – a film which sets out to uplift and really does.

We had the musical at Chichester Festival Theatre a few years ago, and that was charming too, but the film trumps it. The characters feel more real and rounded (despite the slight fantasy edge of it all), and Paris does the rest, very attractively evoked.

Isabelle Huppert as the Dior boss Claudine Colbert withstands the Harris charm offensive the longest, but Ada’s insistence on seeing the good in absolutely everyone isn’t going to leave anyone exempt.

And on a drizzly Friday, Mrs Harris gives a lovely reminder of the momentum that really ought to gather just as soon as we all start being nice to each other. Perhaps we all need Ada to go on a world tour, a working class Henry Kissinger solving conflicts around the globe.

The film is sweet, completely charming and hugely likeable.