Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook, Judy Davies, Caroline Goodall, Kerry Fox, Rebecca Gibney, Gyton Grantley, Shane Bourne, Barry Otto, Sacha Horler, Julia Blake, Shane Jacobson, Hayley Magnus, Alison Whyte, Geneviève Lemon, Terry Norris, Amanda Woodhams, Olivia Sprague, Mark Leonard Winter, Rachael Lorenz, Darcey Wilson, Rory Potter, Tracy Harvey, Roy Barker, Gregory Quinn, Simon Maiden, Grace Rosebirch, Lucy Moir, Jordan Mifsud, Sage Barreda.
There is nothing like watching elegant revenge on the big screen to stir the soul into believing that those who were mistreated by society will ultimately walk away with their heads held high and in fashionable taste.
The Dressmaker sees Kate Winslett return to Australia, a scene of younger cinematic triumphs, as Myrtle ‘Tilly’ Dunnage, a woman whose adult elegance outshines the child she was when she was sent away from her home and her mother, played with tremendous charm by Judy Davis, and the damage inflicted upon her which caused her to run away half way round the world to Europe.
The film seeps into the realm of the Spaghetti Western, the accused returning home to post-war Australia, viewed with suspicion by all except those who knew the truth and the tangled web of poisonous lies that have built up like a nest of ugly spiders, only be transformed as if by Ovid into the town’s muse of Arachne, it is a film that combines the allusion to classical undercurrent with the act of flaming revenge right down to its excellent core.
Alongside Kate Winslett, whose own personal mesmerising performance is to be admired, Hugo Weaving dispels any notion of not being able to throw himself into part which requires comedic pose with a riotous presentation of cross-dressing Police Sergeant Farrat, Sarah Snook as the first of many of Tilly’s gown making appreciators and Geneviève Lemon, who despite only being on screen for a limited time, was a blessing to have in the film adding her own truth to the Australian Spaghetti dressmaking Western.
Revenge is best served cold some say, for Tilly Dunnage it is to be served with flair, the glancing eye of seamstress and the knowledge that it is not the clothes that people wear that makes them beautiful but their actions and deeds.
The Dressmaker is one of the quirkiest, eccentric and insanely whimsical films of the year, one that should be appreciated for its guile, charm, poise and utter conviction to telling a fabulous off-beat tale, a cinematic story in the finest tradition.
Ian D. Hall