3.5 stars. Rated R, and rather harshly, for occasional profanity and fleeting drug content
By Derrick Bang
Revenge is a dish best served
with needle and thread.
Metaphors aren’t the only things
mixed in director/co-scripter Jocelyn Moorhouse’s deliciously savage adaptation
of Rosalie Ham’s 2000 novel. The
Dressmaker starts as a tart-tongued Aussie burlesque populated by
small-town eccentrics: something of a cross between Tim Burton’s sensibilities,
and arch British films such as Cold
Comfort Farm and Death at a Funeral.
 |
| Returning to her home town after an absence of two decades, Tilly (Kate Winslet, standing) finds that her first chore is to restore order — and cleanliness — to the grotesquely messy house in which her mother Molly (Judy Davis) is living. |
But just as you’ve settled into
what seems a comfortable — if rather scathing — groove, the story takes a
jaw-dropping third-act lurch and turns dark. Very dark. Pitch-black gallows humor.
All of which continues to work,
even as we gasp for breath. Ham had a lot to say about small-minded, small-town
snobbery — “suspicion, malice and prejudice,” in her own words — and such
concerns are the thread from which this cutting tapestry is woven. Moorhouse
and co-scripter P.J. Hogan (who brought us Muriel’s
Wedding) faithfully retain both the tone and essential plot points from
Ham’s book, and the result is a tasty blend of social commentary, mystery and
oh-so-sweet revenge saga.
The time is 1951, the setting the
tiny community of Dungatar, a one-horse town deep in the wheat belt of
southeast Australia. The film opens late one night, as a mysterious woman
arrives by bus. This is Tilly Dunnage (Kate Winslet): poised, polished and
professional.
And the last person most folks in
Dungatar ever wanted to see again.
Moorhouse slyly parcels out
brief, sepia-hued flashbacks. As a child, Tilly was hated by the one-room
schoolteacher; was the butt of every other child’s prank; was despised even by
local adults. The distraught little girl lacked the sophistication to realize that
she was being “punished” for being an illegitimate child, her mother Molly
(Judy Davis) having defied social convention by remaining in town to raise her
daughter alone.
Now, 20 years later, and having
been trained in France to become a haute
couture designer, Tilly has returned to Dungatar. Ostensibly, she has come
back to care for her ailing and now wildly peculiar mother; under the surface,
though, Tilly wants answers.
She also wants payback.
The first task, though, may prove
impossible. Molly, a bitter recluse with a particularly nasty tongue, won’t
even acknowledge Tilly as her daughter; the early confrontations between these
two women are hilarious. Davis never has been more wily, Winslet never more
grimly determined. Cackling eccentrics are an actor’s dream come true, and
Davis milks the role for all it’s worth.
Were it not for my fear that this
little film won’t attract any
attention, Davis would be a shoo-in for a supporting actress Academy Award
nomination, if not the statue itself. Yes, she’s that good.
