DIRECTOR:
Jocelyn Moorhouse LEAD CAST: Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving ART DIRECTOR: Lucinda Thomzon AUTHOR: Rosalie Ham based on her novel “The Dressmaker” SCREENPLAY: Jocelyn Moorhouse, P. J. Hogan FILM EDITOR: Jill Bilcock MUSIC:
David Hirschfelder GENRE: Comedy-Drama CINEMATOGRAPHER: Donald McAlpine
PRODUCER: Sue Maslin PRODUCTION
DESIGN: Roger Ford COSTUME DESIGNERS: Marion Boyce, Margot Wilson PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Film Art Media, Apollo Media, Screen
Australia DISTRIBUTORS:
Universal Pictures FILMING LOCATION:
Australia LANGUAGE: English RUNNING TIME:
118 minutes
Technical assessment: 3.5
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA rating:
V18
In 1951, Myrtle “Tilly”
Dunnage (Kate Winslet) returns to her small one-street hometown of Dungatar, in
Australia. It is clear from the first words Tilly speaks that she has a purpose
for returning: “I am back, you bastards!”
Barely ten years old, Tilly was sent out of town when she was implicated
in the death of a bully-classmate. After having lived and studied haute couture in the world’s fashion capitals London, Milan, and
Paris, Tilly is now an expert dressmaker returning home to reconcile with her
ailing mother, “Mad Molly” (Judy Davis) and to piece together a vaguely
remembered but traumatic past. Molly
has difficulty remembering, but the town’s denizens don’t—they treat Tilly like
a pariah, calling her a murderer, until she transforms the frumpy store clerk
Gertrude Pratt (Sarah Snook) into a femme fatale.
Adapted from a
novel of Rosalie Ham and co-written by director Jocelyn Moorhouse, The dressmaker creatively stitches
together swatches of different genres—drama, comedy, tragedy, satire, whodunit—laced
with seriousness and humor, silliness and sarcasm, but always with great panache.
The very unpredictability of
this heady and fascinating brew is what keeps the viewers at the edge of their
seats lest they miss a frame and fail to make sense out of the mishmash. The cast reads like a Who’s Who of
Australian cinema, flawlessly bringing to life a fictitious little town filled
with quirky characters and juicy secrets.
Winslet is a consummate actor here, giving Tilly such tone and depth
that enables the character to elicit audience sympathy in any situation.
Not
until the end will The dressmaker’s
agenda be finally revealed. And
the moral value of it should generate hours of animated conversation at the dinner
table. After all those twists and
turns the story makes, the main protagonist’s quest ends in a symbolic,
sweeping gesture: Tilly rolls out
a bolt of red fabric between her house and the town center, and…? Is she finally forgiving her tormentors
and welcoming them into her heart, or is she burning bridges?
