As sweet and fluffy as a caramel chocolate trifle with just a pinch of sea salt to add a little zip.
Lesley Manville, a long-time MVP member of Mike Leigh’s stock company, is front-and-center as she simultaneously enchants and frustrates the ultra-chic, sometimes snooty, but always elegant purveyors and admirers of Christian Dior and haute couture. She is utterly charming, sometimes heartbreaking, and frequently hilarious in a film which smoothly glides between some harsh truths and a magical realism despite a tried-and-true cliche formula. We know how things are going to turn out (though the denoument involving a possible suitor for Mrs. Harris is surprising) yet we can’t stop watching thanks to Manville’s winning performance and a ravishing score by Rael Jones.
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