Review: Lesley Manville in "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris"

Who wouldn't want to travel with Lesley Manville to Paris this summer?By: Christopher James

Make Lesley Manville the star of every movie. I’m serious, Hollywood. Do it. As the titular character in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, the Oscar nominated character actress brings heart, humor and gumption to her Cinderella-esque heroine. Even from the trailer alone, you can understand the type of frothy entertainment that awaits. The movie attempts to go a bit deeper at times, but it more or less lives up to what the trailer advertised. This is a light, fun time at the ovies with beautiful gowns and great performances. What takes it from a watch-on-a-plane movie to a must-see matinee is a galvanizing and endearing performance by Manville.

We find our titular character, Ada Harris (Lesley Manville), in the midst of bad news...

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Team Experience Emmy Reactions Pt 1: Ode to the Emmy Snubs!

We asked members of Team Experience how they felt about the Emmy nominations (podcast coming up, too). Here's how they felt about those that were missing from the list.

PERFORMERS

ERIC: It was wonderful seeing so many actors from Severance recognized, but it would have been even lovelier if they'd have made room for lead Britt Lower, who provides a perfect tension between hope and dread, and the off-center comic stylings of Tramell Tillman, the sweet-dancing supervisor. Both actors really helped to keep the show in a dangerous zone...

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'Don't tell me not to link, I've simply got to... 🎵 '

This Week's Must Read: Everyone has been talking about the cast changes at Funny Girl on Broadway and it's been very messy. Daily Beast has the gorey details in an inside scoop on how things have played out as Beanie Feldstein announced an early departure and Lea Michele prepares for the iconic titular role.

More after the jump including new projects for Jonathan Bailey, Chris Hemsworth, a second season for The Bear, an Amy Winehouse biopic, and appreciations of Nicole Kidman, the Three Colors trilogy, and the year's best action films...

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1997: Gwyneth Paltrow in "Hard Eight"

We're revisiting the 1997 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternates to Oscar's ballot.

I’m betting that we (the public, spiritual types, film people, you specifically) have some thoughts about Ms. Goop. Some of these thoughts might be compartmentalized to certain aspects of her career, while others bleed over into a general patina of how one perceives her. We (the writer of this article) won’t and frankly don’t have the time to get into the grifter empire, the nepotism, her instrumentality amongst the many journalists and witnesses who helped to bring down Harvey Weinstein, Bosco’s awful 'Snatch Game', the lazy potshots from Knives Out, or her advice to combat the symptoms of Long COVID using a keto diet as she is currently doing, but know that these thoughts are in the back of our mind at all times when the subject of Gwyneth Paltrow is summoned into a conversation. 

There’s plenty of opinions about her that one could have, but for the purposes of this write-up - a tribute of her resourceful, top-flight performance in Hard Eight that’s as worthy of recognition as anyone else in Boogie Nights the same year - let’s keep it simple and state, man, wasn’t she a fantastic actress when she wanted to be?

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Mrs. (H)Arris Goes to Paris: 1992 Edition

by Cláudio Alves

Originally published in 1958, Paul Gallico's Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, also known as Flowers for Mrs. Harris, is the first book in a series about the adventures of an English cleaning woman in her sixties. This particular novella concerns the widowed charwoman who, after falling in love with her employer's French fashions, becomes fixated on the idea of buying a Dior dress for herself. As the title suggests, she goes to Paris to achieve that goal, embarking on what can only be described as a midcentury fairytale. Way before Lesley Manville decided to step into Mrs. Harris' shoes for the 2022 production, the story was already adapted for the screen. Beyond filmed media, there's even a musical that premiered in Sheffield's Crucible Theater in 2016.

As we wait for the new movie to arrive in theaters, let's look back at one of those previous incarnations. Specifically, the 1992 TV movie Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, starring Angela Lansbury in the titular role…

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