Starring Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Lucas Bravo, Ellen Thomas, Rose Williams and Jason Isaacs. Written by Carroll Cartwright, Anthony Fabian, Keith Thompson and Olivia Isaacs. Directed by Anthony Fabian. Running time 115 minutes. Budget $10.4 million.
It's 1957! it's London, a city bright breezy and insanely cheery! A city not riven by racial strife or even racism, where everybody, if they're the working class that is, are loveable, happy in their lot and well up for a sing-song and knees up at their local, while the upperclass are ruthless bag of stinking, greedy, thieving, cheating, bastard scumbags.
Into this wonderful world of racial harmony strides cleaning lady, invisible mender and war widow Mrs Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) imbued with that plucky, Dunkirk spirit that only the working class can 'ave. She's doing at least 90 different jobs a day to make ends meet and spends her spare time with her best friends, fellow cleaning lady - Vi Butterfield (Ellen Thomas) and cheeky Irish bookie Archie(Jason Isaacs) down their local, doing the pools or attending the dog track in White City.
One day, lovely, plucky Mrs Harris's simple, but frugal and 'umble life, is rocked by a series of incredibly lucky incidents that gifts her more money than sense and sends her off to Paris to buy a Christian Dior dress worth £500. And before you puke your guts up in disgust and contempt at the sheer hideous portrayal of both Paris and London in the 1950s you're swept up in a hideous fairytale of loveliness as Mrs Harris single-handedly saves the House of Dior from financial ruin, unites two young lovers, bonds with the entire Paris down-and-out community (which consists of three old men) and solves the city wide garbage strike all before tea time. That is when she's not falling for a man, insanely wealthy and 'andsome who is only attracted to her because she reminds him of the cleaning lady at his boarding school called Mrs. Mopp.
Look I hated this, it wasn't my cup of tea at all. Although I saw it with friends who danced out of the cinema, with dewy-eyed delight and smiles as big as the Cheshire Cat's, who claimed I was a miserable old git, that they loved every stinking minute of this vile, hideous puke fest of loveliness. It's the sort of film this country needs right now, apparently, something to take our minds of the shit storm we're living through right now.
I think they have a point, although I will say after watching this ghastly, wretched, smug-filled sac of shit I went home and watched Hard to Kill, perhaps Steven Seagal's finest movie just to cleanse my cinematic palette.
This film is well outside my comfort zone and despite loathing it with a patience, I can't deny it wasn't well made and that Lesley Manville was bloody good in it.
6/10
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