The Dressmaker

The Dressmaker’s twists are best experienced blind, and its treats are modest but genuine.

Winslet and Davis salvage what they can from the movie — a heroic effort, almost, making it a fun trifle, albeit one with some deadly serious overtones.

Australian films are like local wines from Australian vineyards. They don’t always travel. A bore called The Dressmaker is the latest example.

Unfortunately, and despite its promising start, The Dressmaker doesn’t move much beyond the level of well-costumed playacting.

Its admittedly interesting source material, but the movie’s tone is all over the place and not in a good way.

The film is a tonally uneven, genre-shifting hurricane of a thing, wildly careering off the rails and smashing into everything in its view.

"The Titanic" is now the second-biggest disaster Kate Winslet has ever been associated with. Her new one, The Dressmaker, is like some hellborn alloy of film noir, campy melodrama, “High Plains Drifter” and the Darwin Awards for people who die in moronic accidents.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Home is where the vengeance is. A stylish Aussie revenge-comedy that is adapted from a novel of the same name. Just superbly built screenplay on a tragedy that occurred some time back, but the movie reveals it only in the third act. About a woman who arrives in a small town where she was born and slowly gains popularity among the young women who seeks her stunning costumes to impress their counterparts. The town divides over her return, but why all the hate is the mystery that the movie going to solve for us in its entire narration. The location and the settings were fantastic and it brought a western feel because of the Australians hot and humid weather. Kate Winslate was very good, her role simply reminded me Juliette Binoche from 'Chocolat'. I have heard people saying it was emotional, but I did not find it like that. Instead, I had fun watching it, not like I had the open laughs, but felt joy and satisfaction for the time I spent for it. My initial thought was it could be overrated, but after watching it proved I was wrong. This is one of the best Aussie movie I have seen in the recent years. 8/10

Interesting. Kate Winslet has a tendency to take on odd, complex roles in otherwise peculiar films, doesn't she? Well, The Dressmaker was no exception! Kate was sensational as always, but the movie itself seemed like such a "fantasy" for me to take seriously. This film could be compared to some of Kate's previous "weird yet interesting" movies like Eternal Sunshine and Quills. Films like these (including THE DRESSMAKER), are just so hard to review because although they are works of art in their own right, they're really off the wall and not particularly MY kind of picture, yet I am able to accept them for what they are.

Don't know what to make of this movie. Seemed like a stylishly made movie, but the story was murky and not really clear on it's path. Maybe it was about life, and life doesn't always follow a straight path, but movies should.

Kate Winslet plays a woman who returns to her small Australian hometown to reconcile her unfortunate past. Bringing her Paris couture skills back home results in an amusing, but somewhat unrealistic infusion of high fashion in the locals. While she tries to reconcile with her mother (Judy Davis) and get to the bottom of her trauma, she's wooed by the local hunk (Liam Hemsworth). There are elements of quirky comedy that sometimes work and sometimes seem forced. More unusual is the especially grim final hour, which upends most of the film's mischievous promise. The dresses are beautiful and the performances are solid, but be prepared to be taken in a dark direction before it's over.