Three Cheers for Middle-Aged Women!

 In the past week I have seen two new movies with the main characters played by middle-aged women – I am in shock, well Halloween is on the horizon I suppose.

Joking aside, how refreshing to see first Lesley Manville in Mrs Harris Goes to Paris and then Sally Hawkins in The Lost King.

Mrs Harris is incredibly put upon by her numerous employers. To them she is merely a cleaner, but they trust her with keys to their houses and all manner of secrets besides. She goes about her duties with a smile, always thinking of others. Until one day, with a bit of financial good fortune she decides to fly to Paris and buy a Dior dress. Not quite as simple as she suspects, lugging an empty suitcase with her and expecting to complete her purchase in time for her flight home.

The story started as a novel by Paul Gallico, who co-incidentally wrote the novel of the Poseidon Adventure, useless fact I know, but I found it intriguing.

There wasn’t a REAL Mrs Harris, although many of the characters working at Dior are based on real people of the time.

Anthony Fabian the director of the latest film adaptation says in Town and Country magazine “The key to this story is that it is magic realism, so it has to have an equal dose of magic and reality. If you go too far into magic, you won’t believe it; if you go too far into the realism, it wouldn’t have that uplifting fairy tale quality.”

The Lost King is a true story about Philippa Langley’s determination in searching for and eventually finding the body of King Richard III in a Leicester City car park. The film is also told with much magical realism as Langley interacts with the deceased monarch who sits on the bench outside her bedroom window. He only speaks to her once she has asked him a pertinent question.

Just like Ada Harris, Philippa comes up against great hurdles in her quest. She is not an esteemed academic and she dares to question authority, believing Shakespeare’s account of the king is grossly unfair Tudor propaganda. The Richard III Society are seen as a bit of a crackpot bunch but it is their crowdfunding that really gets the project underway. Only once the excavation is successful do the University get fully on board.

With a bit of Googling I have just found in the Telegraph that one of the academics is vowing to sue the Hollywood producer for their reckless portrayal of him. Boo hoo!

I am not interested in what’s totally true or not, the important thing to me is that both films are great stories of tenacity with inspiring female leads of an age that is usually unrepresented. Here are two “invisible” women who have the audacity stand their ground – horray!

Mrs Harris has a more sugary ending, I came out of the cinema euphorically happy, just as you should at the end of a fairy tale. With The Lost King I admit I shed a tear as Philippa continued until the bitter end to battle academia and the bigwigs with money who only wanted the prestige. She wanted to find her King and put the record straight.

Mission accomplished ladies – now three cheers for us middle-aged women everywhere!

And while the world is listening, let’s tell our own stories.