Product Details

• Actors: Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, Lawrence O'Donnell, Frances Fisher, Cloris Leachman
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• DVD Release Date: August 1, 2006
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FFL2GQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,856 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Mrs. Harris" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

FACT-BASED STORY ABOUT JEAN HARRIS, A WOMAN WHO ACCUSED OFMURDERING FAMED SCARSDALE DIET DR. HERMAN TARNOWER AFTER BEINGIN A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM FOR 14 YEARS.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great character study, and it shows the lovely Ms. Bening at her best, August 15, 2006

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mrs. Harris (DVD)

Mrs. Harris is a film that has severely divided audiences and critics. There are those who have absolutely hated this film, which is based on a true story of the tragic death of Dr. Herman Tarnower (Ben Kingsley) - the Scarsdale Diet Doctor - supposedly by the gun of Jean Harris (Annette Bening). The murder and the proceeding trial was scandalous, after all, it had everything - sex, drugs, abuse, suicides all played out amongst the stuffy and wealthy Connecticut aristocracy.

This film, made for HBO takes a rather moribund look at the events with the director Phyllis Nagy inserting some dark, almost off beat humor into the proceedings. The movie jumps around a bit, combining statements from the trial and interviews with friends and family to launch into the retelling of events that lead up to that fatal outcome.

Was it murder or accidental death? The film opens with the drugged out Jean turning up to Tarnower's house one stormy night and shooting him, but was it an accidental shooting, and was she so emotionally wrought that she didn't know what she was doing? Her defense says yes, but whether she was really responsible or not is up to you, though history states that Mrs. Harris was found guilty.

The suspense is a bit spoilt from showing us what actually happened that fateful night, but the film is still an entertaining and somewhat cautionary tale of a relationship that has gone terribly wrong. Both Kinsley and Bening are perfect as the respective couple, he manipulative, icy and dispassionate, and she the victim, not only of the prescription drugs he constantly doles out to her, but also of his emotional abuse.

It's hard to believe that such an intelligent and respectable woman such as Jean Harris - she was a head mistress of an exclusive girl's school - would find her self embroiled in such an affair and it ultimately cause her undoing. She actually spent fourteen years and thousands of miles ferrying to and from his bed, putting up with his obnoxious sister, finding out he'd never marry her, and discovering other women's lingerie in his bathroom.

So it remains a bit of a mystery why he had such a hold on her, maybe she was a bit narcissistic in the first place, or maybe she was just in it for the drugs, or maybe as the film suggests in a provocative locker room scene, it was actually his masculine organ that had her enthralled.

Mrs. Harris reads like a who's who of A-list actors. Much of the film hangs on cameos by Ellen Burstyn to Brett Butler to Chloë Sevigny, Mary McDonnell, and Philip Baker Hall. None of them are really given that much to do. Leave it to Frances Fisher as Jean's worried friend, Frank Whaley for the prosecution, Bill Smitrovich for the defense, and Cloris Leachman as Hy's sister Pearl, to get the lions share of the action.

The tale is no doubt tawdry and the characterizations are over-the-top, but Mrs. Harris is never boring, with the lovely Mrs. Bening giving a performance that totally anchors the film. Obviously, Tarnower wasn't the most attractive of men, and Kinsley plays him almost as a borderline misogynist. His incessant womanizing and her drug-heightened dependency on him constantly put off Jean, yet mysteriously, she kept going back to him.

The film works best when it deals with the nuts and bolts of their relationship, suggesting that it was based on much more than Joan just wanting him for his money and success and her eventual downward spiral is played both tender and sad. It makes you think that there was certainly a connection there - after all, over the years there was certainly lots of dancing, boating, eating, and sex - along with fourteen years of temper tantrums, tumultuousness, infidelity and ultimately death. Mike Leonard August 06

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great rendition of a twisted tale, April 25, 2006

By 

Richard T. Jones (El Granada, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mrs. Harris (DVD)

Since "what happens" is already known, this movie focuses on "how" it happened, via a series of mocumentry interviews, fantasy scenes,(one in a men's locker room is superb), and fashbacks. Some excellent scriptwriting ("Jean you really should be maried. Just not to me.") and even better acting especially by Ben Kingsley who plays the Scarsdale Diet author, and Annette Bening, who is superb as Mrs. Jean Harris. Bening is one of the best actresses I've seen who can dive into the role of an ambitious frump (think Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", with a less viscious dialogue, served at a lower room termperature) and emerge with a gem of a performance.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtroom drama that's not..., November 14, 2007

By 

Rickster333 (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mrs. Harris (DVD)

A courtroom drama that doesn't unfold in the courtroom at all. It is told through a story line with two different views on what happened that fateful night. It'll make you wonder what really took place.

Fine, fine performance by Annette Bening. Has she ever made a bad movie?Ben Kingsley usually always does well in his roles too (see the powerful movie 'House of Sand and Fog' or 'Death and the Maiden').

A well recommended movie.