FAIRY TALES DO COME TRUE

“Mrs. Harris” is a movie for anyone with a dream or who has been in love or who has dreamed of being in love. In short, a movie for most of us.

This is the kind of picture that critics often say we need more of—a simple story without apology that doesn’t factor into the Marvel Comics Universe, and thank God for that.

Ada Harris is a hard-working cleaning lady who serves a variety of clients, most of whom have never had to lift a finger, not one day, in their posh London lives.

One in particular, a woman of means who somehow manages to skate by week after week without paying poor Ada, has just returned from a trip to Paris with the ultimate souvenir: a Christian Dior gown of such exquisite beauty it leaves Ada transfixed, if not envious.

And a bit bewildered because the gown cost 500 pounds.

“Five hundred quid for a dress?” she exclaims in amazement.

And that sets her off on a quest to scrape up what she needs for the dress of her dreams, and it has to be a Dior.

Some of the movie’s best scenes involve the inventive ways Mrs. Harris obtains enough cash for a ticket to the premier haunt of haute couture. Of course, we know from the title that she ends up in Paris, but the Gallic adventure has to wait while we take a tour of the life of a downtrodden domestic, one with colorful friends, including a chum played by Jason Isaacs who frequents the same pub down the street and who fancies her as his date to the upcoming Legion Dance.

Harris, it’s important to know, was once married to Eddie, who went off to war and who, some twelve years later, still hasn’t been heard from. The story hints at Ada’s realization that something terrible happened, but she doesn’t want to admit to losing the love of her life and, worse, forever being known as a war widow.

So, she leans on her friend Vi, another cleaning lady with the keys to people’s houses and a fair knowledge of all their secrets.

Vi also knows Ada to be so headstrong that there’s no doubt at all her friend will end up wearing the ultimate in French fashion, even if she has nowhere to show off such a creation.

The year is 1957, which means The House of Dior is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the unveiling of a collection befitting that milestone.

Mrs. Harris manages to gain entrance to the couturier’s salon and atelier as can only really happen in a movie. But that’s beside the point.

She butts heads with Dior’s primary gatekeeper and creative director, an acid-tongued woman played by French icon Isabelle Huppert. And there’s no question that Britannia will rule whenever the two square off.

But there’s still the issue of this plain-spoken and plainly dressed woman in a universe in which she clearly doesn’t belong.

Dior, she’s told, serves only the wealthy when the label isn’t at the beck and call of royalty.

But we soon learn that that business model is unsustainable. In the 21st century, sure, Dior is practically a household name and in 2022 is celebrating its 75th year. But in 1957, the great man and fashion icon is close to shutting his doors.

What he needs is an angel and it so happens angels come in all shapes, including one in sensible shoes and a thrift-store hat.

Before you can say “Blimey,” history is made, haute couture is saved and Mrs. Harris has more to show for her trip to Paris than memories of Montmartre.

Lesley Manville has made Ada Harris her own and is likely to earn a raft of award nominations, including a Bafta and an Oscar. She’s both tough and tender-hearted, as sweet as a rose but with a backbone that rivals the rigidity of Big Ben.

And one more note: though the movie is a fiction, based on a best-selling novel, we know Christian Dior was a real person and one who was so synonymous with French fashion that the world knew him simply by his last name. Sadly, he died on vacation in Italy not long after he unveiled his tenth-anniversary collection.

His silhouettes, though, defied convention while also defining post-war fashion. The designs remain both impeccably clean and classic.

Story-telling can be like that, too. Straightforward, with not a stitch out of place.

Mrs. Harris, back from Paris, would agree.