Exclusive: Director Anthony Fabian Reveals the Allure of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Is genuine kindness making a comeback? If Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is any indication, the answer surely is, yes. The Focus Features film is the summer film we’ve been waiting for—heartfelt, loaded with charm, and filled with relatable characters. It’s an exceptional piece of cinema that reminds us there are more than superhero sequels and action-adventure films out there. A joy from beginning to end, writer/director Anthony Fabian offers something rare: a main character you not only want to root for but also emulate.

Based on the beloved 1958 novella Mrs. ’Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico, the story chronicles a seemingly ordinary 1950s British housekeeper who dreams of owning a couture Christian Dior gown. Serendipity steps in, and she soon finds herself on an unpredictable adventure in Paris to obtain the perfect dress. Oscar nominee Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread, Mum, Harlots) takes on the title row. Jason Isaacs (Sex Education), Ellen Thomas (In The Long Run), Isabelle Huppert (Elle, Greta), Alba Baptista (Warrior Nun), and Lucas Bravo (Emily in Paris) round out the stellar cast.

“One of the important messages of the film is about kindness and how what goes around comes around,” Fabian says. “Basically, if you’re essentially kind to people and treat them properly, you’re more likely to have a similar response from the people around you than if you’re nasty and unpleasant. And I think that’s important for people to think about and understand. I always felt this would be a rare sort of film to make.”

Updating Mrs. Harris

Gallico’s book made a splash with his main character, Ada, in the late 1950s in what began as a series of four books — Mrs. Harris visits New York, too, for all you bibliophiles out there. But introducing Gallico’s original tale to modern-day audiences had its challenges. “Paul gives you a great jumping-off point for this story,” Fabian explains. “I didn’t want to let anybody down who loved the original novella by creating something completely different. I wanted to stay true to the spirit of the book, in fact, and the essential plot elements.”

What Gallico didn’t provide a filmmaker with is “real stakes, real obstacles, and real drama—everyone is just a bit too nice,” he adds. “The project provided a lot of challenges in terms of raising the stakes and having something even more dramatically interesting to keep you invested in the compelling story we were trying to tell.”

To that end, the filmmaker tweaked several things, placing obstacles in Mrs. Harris’s path. Certainly, Fabian would keep the period flavor, but several characters were refined, including Dior matron Claudine (played with chilling effectiveness by Huppert). The character of Vi (played by Thomas), Mrs. Harris’s best friend in the book, also gets a creative polish. Vi, like Mrs. Harris, is Cockney herself, but when Fabian researched history, he discovered “The Windrush Generation” — Jamaican immigrants who came to England looking for work in the 1950s. Vi in the film version became one of those Jamaican immigrants — the backstory here finds Vi and Mrs. Harris meeting at an ammunitions factory during the war.

“We felt that brought a more modern feel to their relationship, which is an absolutely beautiful friendship,” Fabian muses. “But the most important change made was that the original author never really explains why Mrs. Harris wants this important dress—why she falls in love with it or what it actually means to her. The greatest work that went into the adaptation was fleshing all the reasons for the dress—what it represented, and how it enabled the character to transform as a human being.”

Related: Exclusive: Filmmaker Seth McTigue and Actor Roy Huang Discuss Take the Night

Casting Lesley Manville

Fabian had seen Manville in a variety of standout performances throughout her career. When she received an Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread, he started campaigning for her to play Mrs. Harris. “Obviously, the character in Phantom Thread was extremely different,” he says. “But Lesley did a series for the BBC called Mum, in which she plays a very kind, rather put-upon, but ultimately strong character. And that made me feel she was temperamentally very well suited to playing Ada Harris—as well as the fact that she’s just such an extraordinarily brilliant, versatile theater, film, and television actress.”

Fabian also knew he’d be in good hands—Manville agreed to do the project within a week of receiving the script. When they started discussing different aspects of the character, they contemplated what kind of accent Mrs. Harris would have—something very broad and Cockney or something more convincing and, “yes, a less patronizing version of ‘Cockney,’” he notes. Interestingly, he says Manville had a great deal of access to this character—the actress’s mother is from the era and her father was a taxi driver. Having knowledge of the working-class element of her parents’ generation—that 1950s generation—was a big asset. Of Manville’s acting style, he says: “She’s just one of the most well-prepared, concentrated, hard-working, clear actors you could ever hope to work with. And she has an enormous sense of fun. She loves to keep the set light and everyone entertained. Which is, you know, hard to do on a grueling schedule, week after week. She’s a bit of a miracle.”

Manville and the entire cast make the best of Fabian’s script, which he penned alongside Carroll Cartwright and Keith Thompson. The main thread in the film is significant: never give up on your dreams. Fabian manages not come to across as preachy in executing that message. There’s a sense of groundedness in the writing. But pursuing one’s dreams is something Fabian knows all too well. “I’ve certainly always lived by that. I’ve been making films for 30 years and if I had ever given up on my dreams, I wouldn’t be here. Many people can relate to that and should be encouraged to follow their dreams. A lot of people give up, perhaps too soon.”

Mostly, he says, he’d love for audiences to walk away from the endeavor feeling as if they’ve experienced something unique. “Ultimately, we’ve been through a very difficult time,” he reflects. “We’re still going through very difficult times with COVID, with the war in Ukraine, with the economy, and many pressures. I want people to walk away from this feeling uplifted.”

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris opens nationwide on July 15.