The Dressmaker
The stitch is back…
THIS IS VERY WRONG,” SAYS ONE character when confronted with violence. “Yes, but I’m unstable,” comes the reply. Both statements apply to this Kate Winslet-starring adaptation of Rosalie Ham’s novel. Part outlandish Oz-com cut from the same cloth as ’90s hits Muriel’s Wedding and My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan directed those and wrote this screenplay), part mystery-thriller and part spaghetti western, its tone hops about like a ’roo dancing on a barbie.
Returning to her rural town of Dungatar, Myrtle ‘Tilly’ Dunnage (Winslet) shacks up with her cantankerous ma, ‘Mad Molly’ ( Judy Davis, excellent), and stares down the contempt of the townsfolk – she was banished, aged 10, for killing a playmate. Now a glamorous, worldly woman whose titular profession ensures that she’s forever enshrined in breath-snatching outfits, Tilly is hellbent on clearing her name and getting revenge while she’s at it. And that’s just the half of it. There’s also a romantic subplot with local lad Teddy McSwiney (a gently smouldering Liam Hemsworth), a crimson wave of grand guignol killings, and a crossdressing police sergeant (Hugo Weaving). Fair to say that’s a lot to stitch together for Jocelyn Moorhouse ( How To Make An American Quilt), making her first film in 18 years.
Many, for sure, will call The Dressmaker ‘uneven’ or ‘patchy’ and even ‘a mess’, but all of this genre-hopping and switching between sincerity and artifice lends it a pleasing energy. Winslet gives it both barrels as a femme fatale whose actions are buoyed by a score that blends Ennio Morricone-flavoured thrills and Philip Glass-tinged emotionality, while the town’s ladyfolk floating through their spit-and-sawdust environ in dazzling haute couture is a gloriously surreal sight.
Half an hour too long given its exhausting content, The Dressmaker is nonetheless an intriguing, fun oddity that highlights the absurdities and extremities of human behaviour. Jamie Graham