This is a feel-good, colorful love letter to Paris (complete with knowing nods to it's political/social history) - as advertised. It also covers themes as following one's dreams, knowing yourself, finding yourself, and not letting your job or what others see/believe what you are define you.. albeit not delving very deeply.
There were a few things that did rub me the wrong way, the major one being that after her dress is damaged, she THROWS IT IN THE THAMES. More than being littering, it is astonishingly wasteful and unbelieveably out of character: one of the female staff at Dior who is very kind to Mrs. Harris takes her on a tour of the atelier and tells her all the materials such as fabric, beads...etc. Are all carefully sourced from the best of the best; throughout the movie, Mrs. Harris, an acomplished seamstress, expresses extreme respect and awe for the artisans (seamstresses, embroiderers, fabric cutters and drapers...etc.). She would have known the dress (which has a signifcant jeweled beaded front that was not damaged) could have been salvaged. Even if it was not salvageable or she could not afford to fix it, it's beyond imagining she would throw a massive, custom, handmade silk ballgown painstakingly made (on a rush order, mind you) by people she befriended and respected (she is even not-too-subtly reminded by the garbage man on strike that in France "the worker is king") and she believed the spirit of her beloved late husband and her friends helped her obtain, into the river. She would more likely carefully pack it away, finding it too painful to look at, or hang it in her wardrobe to stare at in perpetual despair. This also being post-WW2 and her being old enough to remember rationing (i.e. Silk was saved for soldier's parachutes and NOT available for frivolities like dresses), it definitely took away from the movie for me to have her just unceremoniously toss it into the river. Maybe I'm being silly, but to drive the fact home: $1 USD today was roughly $10.59 in 1957. The green dress cost 430 pounds, equivalent to about $4,553.70 today... a WHOPPING sum of money. For context, the average new home in the US at the time was about $12,200 and a new car was about $2,000.
That scene aside, the movie delivers what it promises - a sweet and sometimes silly feel-good film to fill the time.
There were a few things that did rub me the wrong way, the major one being that after her dress is damaged, she THROWS IT IN THE THAMES. More than being littering, it is astonishingly wasteful and unbelieveably out of character: one of the female staff at Dior who is very kind to Mrs. Harris takes her on a tour of the atelier and tells her all the materials such as fabric, beads...etc. Are all carefully sourced from the best of the best; throughout the movie, Mrs. Harris, an acomplished seamstress, expresses extreme respect and awe for the artisans (seamstresses, embroiderers, fabric cutters and drapers...etc.). She would have known the dress (which has a signifcant jeweled beaded front that was not damaged) could have been salvaged. Even if it was not salvageable or she could not afford to fix it, it's beyond imagining she would throw a massive, custom, handmade silk ballgown painstakingly made (on a rush order, mind you) by people she befriended and respected (she is even not-too-subtly reminded by the garbage man on strike that in France "the worker is king") and she believed the spirit of her beloved late husband and her friends helped her obtain, into the river. She would more likely carefully pack it away, finding it too painful to look at, or hang it in her wardrobe to stare at in perpetual despair. This also being post-WW2 and her being old enough to remember rationing (i.e. Silk was saved for soldier's parachutes and NOT available for frivolities like dresses), it definitely took away from the movie for me to have her just unceremoniously toss it into the river. Maybe I'm being silly, but to drive the fact home: $1 USD today was roughly $10.59 in 1957. The green dress cost 430 pounds, equivalent to about $4,553.70 today... a WHOPPING sum of money. For context, the average new home in the US at the time was about $12,200 and a new car was about $2,000.
That scene aside, the movie delivers what it promises - a sweet and sometimes silly feel-good film to fill the time.