Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris and Where the Crawdads Sing

HCC film professors Marie Westhaver and Mike Giuliano devote this podcast episode to two otherwise very different movies in which female protagonists assert themselves. In "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris," Lesley Manville plays a British cleaning lady who decides to go to Paris and buy an expensive Dior gown. Although Marie likes this film more than Mike, he agrees that it's pleasant and agreeably conveys what the world of high fashion was like in the late 1950s. The second film, "Where the Crawdads Sing," is based on a best-selling novel by Delia Owens about a young woman (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) who grows up alone in a North Carolina marsh. Marie and Mike like it, but point out that its serious thematic concerns are given relatively gentle treatment.