Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Snoopymichele I saw this movie upon recommendation from a friend and I have to say, I am not disappointed with it. It's campy, yes, but the campiness works because of the talented cast. The mighty Ben Kingsley as Hy Tarnower and the always terrific Annette Bening as Jean Harris are electric together. The supporting cast was great too-Cloris Leachman, Mary McDonnell, and Francis Fisher all gave top-notch performances.My only complaint with this film is all the flashback scenes of the murder. I mean, it starts out with the murder, but then we see it for what seems like five times more. It was too much. Jean Harris was portrayed as alternately a cold blooded killer and a woman scorned who shot her lover accidentally because she was doped up on a pills. The truth must lie somewhere in the middle.I liked the way the characters gave testimonials (Brett Butler was hilarious), and the script was very well done. The dialogue was at times a bit silly, but not overly insulting. Overall, I would give Mrs. Harris an 8 out 10.

MarieGabrielle and anyone with an IQ over 50 will agree about the results of this.A great story deracimated by a Hollywood studio (yet again) underestimating their audience.Annette Bening, Sir Ben Kingsley, Frances Fisher, Frank Whaley, and other talented artists again prove one thesis I have: The most perfect, flawless actor cannot transcend bad writing, and inferior product.This is proof. We need a re-make(soon). Mrs. Harris was a brilliant, over-achieving woman who had an obsessive relationship with Dr. Tarnower. The relationship was complex, and she surely did not act and speak like a brainless plebeian, as she is portrayed in this film. Nor, I am sure, was Tarnower as obviously repulsive. Why is it Hollywood has screenwriters who cannot comprehend intellectuals?. Perhaps they should read the New York Times Book Review at least one time a year, before they propose to understand people who grew up with education, writing, and achievement as a cornerstone, rather than as an aside to the Rolls Royce parked in the garage. Tiresome and ridiculous. 2/10. accomplishment.

invoking_janis Spoilered just in case you are not familiar with the story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Utterly fabulous film with a strong cast. Cameos done by Ellen Burnstyn and Brett Butler capture Tarnower's eclectic selection of women. Annette Bening does an amazing job of capturing the complexity of real-life woman Jean Harris, yet she does so with an seeming effortlessness that makes her performance eloquent. She IS Jean Harris -- petite, brilliant, vulnerable and dangerous. What a gifted and powerful actress! Ben Kingsley also does wonderful homage to cad/victim Dr. Tarnower. This movie is well cast, well scripted, and well done. For instance, I thought the thunderbolts edge the soft character of Jean Harris quite nicely. Dishes, diamonds and dark glasses. Also accompanied by poignant selections of music from the late sixties and seventies (for instance, Chicago's 'Color My World' as they struggle to get the doctor's stretcher down the spiral staircase as Jean sits by herself in a comatose haze -- very well done indeed. I'm not sure I totally believe her, but I sure do like her. This movie is wonderful!

nycritic Such is the thing which tangles out emotions and makes nervous wrecks out of our erstwhile model citizen facade. Jean Harris, a competent woman of society, was faced with that insurmountable challenge: the slippery Casanova she was attached to.The events were the talk of the town back when they occurred in 1980. Jean Harris was on trial for the murder of Dr. Herman Tarnower, a crime she denied having any involvement with but one which put her behind bars for 13 years. While there is no doubt that she did kill Dr. Tarnower, MRS. HARRIS focuses on the events that brought these two disparate people together.Jean Harris' world is one of bright tones, colors, and superficial happiness. She at times seems to be quite ahead of her own times and is as sharp as a tack. But all this was a clever facade which hid a neediness that only required that particular person to bring to light. Tarnower, a man who makes no effort to hide his smooth operator character, comes into her life and takes root there but makes. You would think he'd at least have some decorum in hiding his affairs but he throws them right at Harris -- for almost 14 years -- who is determined to stand by him no matter how much it hurt her moral integrity and caused her eventual meltdown.This situation is crucial for many women who mirror their happiness in the man whom they are involved with: neither of them see anything else out there, hence the point of director Phyllis Nagy in having these lovely, glowing tones. Harris exists and so does the world around her. All is pitch-perfect to a giddy point, it's like viewing a version of THE STEPFORD WIVES. Once Tarnower pushes her one too many times -- like a cat teasing an otherwise deceptive mouse -- the whole image becomes a sick grey and Harris ages years before our eyes, looking dead, like a bag lady on crack. Bening is remarkable as usual in shaving off her glamor to portray both sides of the moon, often in the same scene. She makes Jean Harris' fears and wrangled emotions come alive and her moments with Kingsley are the best in the film. As a matter of fact, they are the film. Kingsley is the puppet master playing her with hints of sadism. His reaction to a Happy New Year's party in which she tells him, "Instead of focusing on hurting other women, why don't you focus on hurting just me?" is priceless. All I could say was, "No wonder she did him in. I'd have done him myself." MRS HARRIS, despite what other critics say, does not move too fast. I felt its pace was easy as a matter of fact. It wouldn't have hurt if the cinematography would have gone darker as Harris and Tarnower's verbal tangles went for the worse, but it's a minor complaint. Being an HBO-produced drama it allows itself to be viewed and enjoyed. Watch Ellen Burstyn in a teeny-tiny cameo, though. She played Jean Harris herself twenty-five years ago herself in another made-for-TV movie called THE PEOPLE VS. JEAN HARRIS. Also noteworthy is Cloris Leachman playing a she-dog of a sister to Kingsley and hating Bening all the way through.