Living and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris - Review
- Matthew Spence
- Mar 10, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 11, 2023
Today I will discuss two similar movies which focus on an older main character who is struggling to give their life new meaning. Additionally, both movies have a character named Ms. Harris which I thought was an interesting coincidence. I will discuss the movie I enjoyed more first and then move on to the second. Lets begin.

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris:
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is a feel good movie about an older woman’s journey to try and purchase an expensive Couture Dior dress that I would not have watched had it not been nominated for an Oscar as it is not the kind of movie that on its surface appeared to interest me. However, I ended up enjoying this movie even if it was not perfect and had some troubling aspects. The first thing that surprised me about this movie was the creative edits and practical effects used at times to draw the viewers attention to certain aspects of scenes or to make them appear more surreal such as when it appears Mrs. Harris is floating in the scene toward a dress or the dress becomes reflected several times to extenuate its importance in the film and to our main character. The main thing I enjoyed about this movie was the journey Lesley Manville goes on here as the titled Mrs. Harris from being a woman who accepts her lot in life and being disrespected to standing up for herself against anyone cruel enough to look down on her for her age or occupation. Furthermore, it was endearing to see that Mrs. Harris’ fatal flaw in the movie was her overly trusting nature whereby at the end of the film she reluctantly loans her dress to a friend in need which results in it being badly damaged. Mrs. Harris is a great main character and seeing someone with such a kind nature learn to stand up for herself after being taken advantage of and having experienced so much condescension was a very rewarding experience. There are several other interesting side characters though the one that stands out in my mind is the Dior worker played by Isabelle Huppert who at first appears to be a rude and pretentious woman until we later learn of the hidden struggle she is going through that being having to take care of her husband who has been injured in a war thus explaining her sometimes crass demeanour. The movie becomes a bit fantastical in its second half especially when Mrs. Harris starts a workers revolt at Dior after the employees are disrespected and some even fired which she takes offence to and ultimately decides to stand against. The aspect of the film I found troubling was that it appeared as though the characters in the movie only gained respect for Mrs. Harris once to she was shown to have acquired some wealth thus allowing her to be admitted into the Dior store and admired by her peers at the end when she shows off her expensive dress. While the movie does try to tell the inspiring story of a woman who learns to stand up for herself it undermines it by attributing the inspiration for this new found courage to her gathering a substantial amount of money in a short period of time rather than some newfound wisdom or life experience. This is a good film and you get pretty much what you would expect from a movie like this and I recommend it if you want a more relaxed viewing experience. I gave this film a 6/10.
Here is the trailer for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris:

Living:
Oliver Hermanus' 2022 film Living is almost a remake in that it’s screenplay was adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru. The main star Bill Nighy has received most of the praise directed towards this film and having seen him in several movies before I was excited to see him take on a more dramatic role as compared to playing campier roles that I enjoyed such as Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean series and Viktor in the Underworld movies. The film follows Nighy’s character who has received a terminal diagnosis from his doctor and thus is inspired to try reinvent himself so as to feel that he has not missed out as he fears he has done throughout much of his life. The movie while having a unique story, good acting, and incredible cinematography ultimately underwhelm the viewer as none of these elements culminate to form a satisfying narrative in that the audience never feels fully invested as the movie tries too hard to be understated to the point of obscuring what it is trying to convey.

From the front loaded credits to the authentic colour pallet of an older movie the film makers do a great job of making the audience feel they are watching a story from the past based on these retro movie making techniques. The opening of this film reminded me of the recent horror film Halloween Kills which I thought also did a great job of recreating the cinematic feel of a film from the past. The movie also has incredible set design especially during a sequence where Nighy’s character goes to a spectacular carnival with a stranger he meets at a bar whom he implores to try and help show him how to feel alive which I thought was a nice moment in the film. The movie also does a great job of not subjecting the audience to seeing the full extent of Nighy’s medical decline as it is simply conveyed during this carnival sequence where he returns from running outside with a bloody handkerchief. It was interesting to see how the stranger Nighy had brought with him changed upon seeing this sight of Nighy with the bloody handkerchief in that he could no longer enjoy the carnival acts that he had been just minutes ago.
Here is the opening sequence in Halloween Kills I made reference to which I think is worth seeing.
The understated acting wherein many characters in the movie restrain their emotion so as not to resort to the typical Oscar bait monologues was very enjoyable as a viewer since these more nuanced characters made you try and figure out what they are really going through rather than having how they feel be thrown out at you in a horribly cliched and overwrought speech. Bill Nighy is excellent here at acting in a subtle manner especially during a sequence where he shares his diagnosis with a work colleague named Ms. Harris, played by Aimee Lou Wood, specifically when he notices that he is starting to upset her so he pulls back and insists that she return home so as to not further her emotional reaction to his revelations about his health. Wood is also great in this movie as she introduces a lot of humour into an otherwise bleak film especially when she shares the nicknames of people she works with to Nighy and they enjoy a laugh together about it. It was disappointing that the movie resorted to showing a montage of the pair talking as it would have been better to continue these great interactions as they were one of the highlights of the film. Nighy is still excellent here and I thought the movie did a great job of showing his transformation throughout the film where he goes from being a meek and soft spoken figure in the office to a more assertive one and also one confident enough to sing a song in a bar full of people even when it appeared he could barely utter more than a whisper early in the film to his closet family members.

While I did enjoy these nuanced performances and the subtle exchanges the characters had with each other this kind of dialogue became a nuisance as I felt it prevented me as a viewer from really understanding how the character’s felt especially given the abrupt nature of the film where Nighy dies at the midpoint wherein much is still a mystery about him. For instance, early on Nighy is shown to be almost haunted by memories he is vividly experiencing which the movie creatively shows by having him look around the room as these flashes of the past come back to him though they are never fully unravelled as they are never investigated or even mentioned later in the movie which I found disappointing. While I can appreciate that the movie does not follow a generic Hollywood formula and tries to chart a new course I also think that sometimes a tried and true method to telling a story may have better served the movie to form a lasting impact on me. However, this method of storytelling was interesting in that the characters in the film only notice changes in Nighy’s character after he has died and they look back at how he behaved alluding to the fact that very few people were very close to him to see these changes occurring firsthand similar to how Wood’s nickname for him in the movie is “Mr. Zombie.” Additionally, Nighy’s own son in the film believes that he is having an affair with Wood’s character because they notice him spending time with her reflecting that they too are in the dark about much of his life as he is only a friend of Wood. I also thought that the way in which Nighy’s character dies earlier than the viewer may expect given the typical formula movie’s follow reflected how Nighy’s character was surprised to learn that his life was going to be cut short. I also thought it was endearing to see how Wood’s character and Alex Sharp, a colleague of Nighy who looked up to him, seem to be inspired by his example such that Wood continues to carry around a small stuffed bunny which she won while enjoying a night out with Nighy. The movie also makes a sad statement on human nature in that after Nighy had passed one of his colleagues having now realized that in Nighy’s last few months made an earnest approach to his job similarly commits in front of his peers to put a similar effort into his work going forward which he almost immediately does not follow through on as he is shown to be putting important work on the back burner reflecting that such commitments people make are often never followed through on. Balancing these two halves where the movie is both uplifting and unsettling made it hard to square my thoughts on the movie as a whole since while I did appreciate the movie it was not one I overly enjoyed. For those reasons I gave this film a 4/10.
Here is the trailer for Living:
Comentarios