Isabelle Huppert in British High Fashion Comedy A Dress for Mrs Harris Promises to be Hilarious and Dramatic

French cinema is used to seeing Isabelle Huppert interpret characters of impenetrable psychological complexity. About a teenage prostitute who kills her parents Violette Noziere (1978) by Claude Chabrol a boss girl in the video game industry starting to chase her rapist to reproduce the act again and again She (2016) by Paul Verhoeven (adaptation of the tormented novel “Oh …” by Philippe Djian, which I highly recommend). there the actress returns in a British comedy set in 1950s Paris, Mrs. Harris goes to Paris.

Isabelle Huppert in the role of Dior’s passive-aggressive and hilarious guardian

In this farce which will be released in France with the title of A dress for Mrs. Harris on November 2, 2022 we follow the story of a housekeeper who literally falls in love with a Dior haute couture dress seen in the business of an employer. So he takes it into his head to acquire one in turn by all means. She is Lesley Manville, nominated for a 2018 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Phantom Thread (formerly a fashion film) that embodies this extravagant heroine. And Isabelle Huppert plays precisely an elite guardian of the temple of the great French maison, Mrs. Colbert (to be pronounced in British, obviously).

Isabelle Huppert loves very funny dramas and very sad comedies

Asked since rowing United States, Isabelle Huppert is amused by the fact that the collective imagination keeps her so much in dramas, while she enjoys it just as much in comedies, and above all thatshe doesn’t really care what kind of movie she’s in :

“What people expect of me as an artist is beyond my worries. That would mean you have some sort of strategy and I don’t care. I’m just making a movie because I want it, that’s it. I never think of changing people’s perception of me. I have never really drawn or defined a line between comedy and drama.

I think you can be very funny in dramas and very sad in comedies. Even in this film, my character has moments where it becomes more tragic than funny. And in the most serious films you always have this double dimension between irony and drama. So I don’t say to myself: “I’m doing the drama, I’m doing the comedy”. I’m just making a movie, that’s all. “

A dress for Mrs. Harris, a more socially committed comedy than it looks?

The actress goes even further, stating that she finds her roles in the psychosexual thriller hilarious She and the drama The pianist (2001) by Michael Haneke (where her sadomasochistic character as a piano teacher goes so far as to put broken glass in the pocket of one of her students to ruin her career). Vibration…

But that certainly explains why Isabelle Huppert doesn’t see so much Mrs. Harris goes to Parisdirected by Anthony Fabian, as a simple comedy, but perhaps also as a social drama, where the cleaning heroine even tries to wage a form of workers’ struggle inside the Dior house. The actress sums it up like this, with rowing still :

“It’s not just a nice movie, it’s not just a comedy – through this metaphorical dress, the film manages to say important things. […] The film says something about how certain desires, certain dreams, should not be reserved for a few people but for everyone. At some point it shows Ms. Harris understands she should bring democracy to this world of royalty. “

In short, A dress for Mrs. Harris with Isabelle Huppert promises to be hilarious (humor British oblige), but also socially interrogative, and will be released on November 2, 2022 in France.

A photo credit: Screenshot of the YouTube trailer.