I watched this film on a plane and really enjoyed it. It's a stylist's dream movie with every costume, including the working class ones, a treat. Lesley Manville is incredibly perfect for the role of Ada Harris. It feels like she is a real person. Yes it's a treacly fantasy of a movie but the "suspension of reality' tone is very consistent and that helps you enter that world. Tellingly, at the start of the film we learn Ada has been hoping her husband, who went missing in WWII, is still alive, 10 years after the war. But while there may be a bit of mental illness in that, the movie makes the point that challenging your reality can be useful. Sometimes, there is nothing wrong with having big dreams and with refusing to accept your allotted place in life. Also that perhaps it didn't matter her dress was destroyed - it was the journey of making friends in Paris and getting to see the Dior fashion house up close that mattered more.
Review of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
