Lesley Manville and The Dress in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (David Lukacs/Focus Features)

Having run a London fashion house as Daniel Day-Lewis’s watchful sister in 2017’s Phantom Thread, Lesley Manville returns to the haute couture world, this time playing a most unusual client. Adapted by the director Anthony Fabian and three other screenwriters from Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel Mrs. ’Arris Goes to Paris, which also became a 1992 TV movie starring Angela Lansbury and Omar Sharif, this sweet, if unsurprising, Cinderella story celebrates Ada Harris (a determined Manville), a widowed British house cleaner who falls in love with a Christian Dior dress and aims to buy one for herself.

It’s 1957, and we meet Ada and her best friend Vi (a bubbly Ellen Thomas) on a London bus on their way to work. As Ada visits her various clients–a randy bachelor (Christian McKay) with a slew of attractive visiting “nieces”; a pretty starlet (Rose Williams), who always needs Ada’s help to get out trouble; and Lady Dent (Anna Chancellor), a wealthy socialite who never has the money to pay Ada’s wages–it is clear this humble, kindly woman is taken for granted. But when Ada spots an exquisite Dior gown in Lady Dent’s bedroom, she is overcome with desire.

Suddenly Ada, who has been in an emotional limbo since her husband Eddie went missing in action in 1944, has found a new lease on life. She takes on extra jobs, scrimps, plays the lottery, and even bets on a racing greyhound named Haute Couture—with the help of bookie Archie (Jason Isaacs, uncomfortably sporting an Irish accent), who secretly fancies her. Eventually, she saves the 500 pounds she needs to buy her dress.

Off on her grand adventure across the Channel, Ada soon discovers it’s not so easy to purchase a designer outfit from the most exclusive atelier in Paris. Barring her admission to the inner sanctum is the snobbish Madame Colbert (an imperious Isabelle Huppert), who is appalled that a “nobody” would have the temerity to order a gown from Dior. Rescue comes in the courtly form of the Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson, sorely lacking Omar Sharif’s charisma), who invites Ada to view the house’s 10th anniversary collection with him. Because she’s a cash-paying customer, Ada is also taken under the protective wing of Dior accountant André (Lucas Bravo) and tenderhearted model Natasha (Alba Baptista), who is touched by Ada’s single-minded pursuit of her dream.

This feel-good genre of meek or working-class outsiders overcoming insurmountable odds and charming the gatekeepers into helping them achieve their quest is hard to resist. Unfortunately, there is not enough charm here to overcome plot contrivances and lazy, cringeworthy cultural stereotypes—plucky Brits versus the sneering French. (Natasha reads Sartre but thankfully doesn’t wear a beret.) Although there is a Juliette Gréco excerpt, Rael Jones’s score wisely steers clear of accordion music.

Huppert, one of the greatest actresses in French cinema, is reduced to a one-note role as a cold and brittle villain. Even in the one scene that reveals her character’s more vulnerable side, she does not have much to work with, and Mrs. Harris spoils the emotional moment with the encouraging, if anachronistic, “You go, girl!” (At least Diana Rigg, in the 1992 version, was allowed to flesh out Madame Colbert with empathy.)

Production designer Luciana Arrighi does her best to re-create Paris in Budapest, but the London scenes, filmed on location, nonetheless feel more authentic. Still, the cooperation of the House of Dior, which provided blueprints of the Paris headquarters, allowed her to beautifully reconstruct the main salon for the stunning fashion show that enchants Ada. Costume designer Jenny Beavan must have had a blast remaking Dior’s most iconic designs.

Gallico’s novel and the 1992 adaptation emphasized how Mrs. Harris and the people she met touched each other’s lives. The tame new version, though, is more a formulaic exercise in girl power and self-fulfillment.