[yasr_overall_rating]
A glamorous woman returns to her small town in rural Australia. With her sewing machine and haute couture style, she transforms the women and exacts sweet revenge on those who did her wrong.
“The Dressmaker” tells the story of the beautiful and talented Tilly Dunnage (Academy Award-Winner Kate Winslet). After years working as a dressmaker in exclusive Parisian fashion houses, Tilly returns home to a town in the Australian outback to reconcile with her eccentric mother Molly (Academy Award-Nominee Judy Davis). She also falls in love with the pure-hearted Teddy (Liam Hemsworth), and armed with her sewing machine and haute couture style, Tilly transforms the women of the town, exacting sweet revenge on those who did her wrong.
There is a murder mystery at the core of Jocelyn Moorhouse’s “The Dressmaker.” The film, which is adapted from the novel by Rosalie Ham, revolves around the small town of Dungatar, in Australia, in the early 1950s and whether or not Myrtle Dunnage killed Stewart Pettyman years earlier.
The second Winslet sets her sewing machine on the ground and snarls, “I’m back, you bastards,” we’re delighted to think we’re in for something fun. The joyous anticipation is sadly short lived. Although there are exquisite performances, the story is one that has been done far too often. *Girl is shunned and slighted by small town, goes away, makes a good life for herself, comes back and gets revenge for the harm done to her.* Even with a charming and heart-wrenching love story stirred in for good measure, the movie left a flat taste in my mouth, similar to a ginger ale that’s been sitting out for a while. There’s a hint of sparkle and fizz, but not enough to make it worth drinking.
Although it has a dark, serious mystery at its core, the movie is actually a comedy, and has many quirky characters to introduce in Dungatar. There is a chemist who thinks all women are sinners, Percival Almanac (Barry Otto); his arthritic wife, Irma (Julia Blake); the policeman who likes fancy clothes be they men’s or women’s, Sergeant Farrat (Hugo Weaving); the young man from the poor family who is tolerated because he can play football, Teddy McSwiney (Liam Hemsworth); the local politician and father of Stewart, Evan Pettyman (Shane Bourne); and his wife, who has a nervous condition, Marigold (Alison Whyte). It doesn’t end there, either. There are more people introduced by the film, all trotted out to do something vaguely comic, reinforce the aforementioned quirkiness, and who disappear until they are required once more for another bit of fun.
“The Dressmaker” is, in large part, made up of all these disparate pieces; elements which it tries to form into a seamless whole. They are simply too numerous and too varied for it to all come together.
In theaters Friday, September 30th
