Posts Tagged ‘Jason Isaacs’

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

Director: Anthony Fabian

Cast: Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptiste, Lucas Bravo, Jason Isaacs, Christian McKay, Freddie Fox, Ellen Thomas, Roxanne Duran

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Running Time: 1 hour and 55 minutes

This film is in English and French with subtitles.

Oscar nominee Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) returns to the world of 1950’s fashion in the delightful remake of the 1992 Television film Mrs Harris Goes to Paris based on the novel by Paul Gallico and stars as a London cleaning lady Ada Harris.

Upon finding out that her beloved husband was declared dead while missing in action in World War II, Mrs Harris receives a War Widow’s pension pay out from the military and through a series of fortunate events saves up enough money to tell her friend Violet Butterfield played by Ellen Thomas and her male friend Archie played by Jason Isaacs (Hotel Mumbai, A Cure for Wellness) that she is going to Paris to buy a Christian Dior haute couture dress worth 500 pounds. This is 1957 in London, so that was a tidy sum to pay for a frock.

As the title suggests, Mrs Harris does indeed go to Paris to the eccentric and complicated House of Dior run by Madame Colbert wonderfully played with panache by Oscar nominee Isabelle Huppert (Elle) and soon makes friend with the young and dashing account manager Andre Fauvel played by Emily in Paris star Lucas Bravo (Ticket to Paradise). As Mrs Harris soon discovers everything at Dior is not what they seem, despite the gorgeous gowns and the glamour. The fashion house is in economic decline and needs to attract a new set of clientele.

With her forthright and street smart attitude, Mrs Harris soon gets her beautiful dress while disrupting the House of Dior and warding off the overtures from the fussy but debonair Marquis de Chassagne played by French actor Lambert Wilson (The Matrix Resurrections, 5 to 7), while realizing deep down that she will eventually have to return to her life as a cleaning lady and deal with her posh employers including Giles Newcombe played by Christian McKay and Lady Dant wonderfully played by Anna Chancellor (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Dreamers).

Extremely well cast with both British and French actors, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is a delightful film about a woman fulfilling her dreams while gaining a beautiful dress and finding a place to eventually show off that gown with the real man of her dreams. Lesley Manville is exceptional as Mrs Harris downplaying the role to perfection while making Mrs Harris believable and more significantly relatable.

The young actors Lucas Bravo and Alba Baptiste provide some eye candy, while the Dior gowns steal the show particularly the infamous dress which makes international headlines.

If viewers love an excellent feel good film, then watch Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, its light enough not to be taken too seriously but strong enough to make a lasting impression as it subtly makes comments about industrial action, class relations and high fashion.

Mrs Harris Goes To Paris gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing.

FURY

Director: David Ayer

Cast: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerma, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Scott Eastwood, Jason Isaacs, Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg

End of Watch director David Ayer tackles the war genre in the brutal drama simply entitled Fury assembling a stellar cast of great young actors including Shia LaBeouf last seen in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena (End of Watch, American Hustle) and Jon Bernthal and headed by the illustrious Brad Pitt (Legends of the Fall, Twelve Monkeys, Moneyball, The Counselor).

In a role similar to that played in Inglourious Basterds, Pitt plays Don “Wardaddy” Collier, a hardened soldier and Nazi killer who is heading up a tank squadron and who has seen his fair share of bloody battles. The tank in question is called Fury and as the Allies advanced into Germany during April 1945, these American tanks were combating the far superior designed German Panzers. As the brutal end of World War Two winds down, Hitler has ordered every last man, woman and child to defend their country against the advancing Allies.

Against this gritty theatre of war, the veteran Collier inherits a young and naive gunner named Norman Ellison superbly played by Logan Lerman who to his dismay went from being a typist in the US Army to manning a machine gun in an armoured tank. Its Collier’s job to toughen Norman up, even forcing him to shoot an unarmed German soldier as he brandishes pictures of his family to the American troops and desperately pleads for his life.

As the five man team who drive Fury further into the German countryside, the situation gradually deteriorates as they first enter a German town obliterated by shelling casually coming across a suicide party of Nazi officers along with a scattering of scared German villagers and then near a farmhouse in the muddy countryside where they encounter an enemy infantry division marching towards them.

This is grim viewing with lots of bloodshed, superbly choreographed action sequences and unrelenting violence, cinematically brought to life with razor sharp sound effects, giving the viewer the sense of being involved in these gruesome final battles.

As opposed to George Clooney’s Monuments Men, David Ayer’s Fury deglamourizes war to its basic instinctual premise of kill or be killed and with excellent sound editing and effects, the film stands as a perfect counterpoint to The Imitation Game which elegantly showed war as a complex game of ingenuity and skill, clouded with espionage and intrigue.

Fury goes straight to the bloody and dirty heart of war and in its tag line aptly states that no war ends quietly. This is man fighting man with all the brutal savagery one has for each other’s enemies, as the victors march through the lands of the defeated.

Fury is well acted especially by Logan Lerman (Noah) in one of his more substantial roles and definitely alludes to a talent waiting to be nurtured. The rest of the four man team adds a brave complement to Norman’s emotional and physical journey as a very young soldier who realizes he has to go to any lengths to stay alive. Fury will definitely appeal to war film enthusiasts and those viewers that enjoyed Saving Private Ryan, Lone Survivor and even the more stylized Quentin Tarantino war film Inglourious Basterds.

American director David Ayer has excelled with Fury which is highly recommended viewing aimed at a mature masculine audience that can appreciate the art of combat and the innate savagery of war itself. Fury is not for the squeamish and certainly not for those expecting a light hearted war romp like The Monuments Men.