THE DRESSMAKER: A Delightful Way To Break Taboos

In The Dressmaker, set in 1950’s Australia, Tilly (Kate Winslet) returns to the small rural town she grew up in, to find closure and to take care of her ill mother, Molly (Judy Davis). When Tilly was ten years old, she was sent away after she supposedly killed a boy – although she cannot remember what happened. She spent twenty years travelling around the world, from Melbourne to London, from London to Italy and Spain, and eventually, Paris, France, where she studied at the great Parisian Couture Houses, and became an expert dressmaker.

The little town of Dungatar reels at her return, the murder of the young boy still fresh on their minds, the townies vindictive. One-by-one, however, Tilly knows to win them over with her great dressmaking skills, and transforms the ugliest women into beautiful, desirable women. One of the women who is not so easily won over hires another dressmaker, and a competition as to who is the best dressmaker commences.

Sounds ridiculous? Yes, it does, and it is. But I’m glad to say it totally works.

Breaking cinematic taboos

Thankfully, the fashion or the murder are not what this movie (based on the book of the same title by Rosalie Ham) is all about. While Winslet, as the femme fatale in red distracting the local men from their footy finals with her unusual beauty, will be a scene I’ll never forget, and the time-appropriate costuming (by Marion Boyce and Margot Wilson) is a sight for sore eyes, it is far from The Dressmaker‘s main focus.

Essentially, the fashion makes for a friendly and accessible disguise for the sensitive and taboo topics the film deals with. One such taboo is the mother-daughter dynamic of Tilly and Molly. Tilly comes back to find Molly in a deteriorated state – she is demented, filthy, and despised by the rest of the town, who refer to her as Mad Molly. Tilly, at one point, has to physically wrangle her mother into a bath, and when she tries to feed her, Molly refuses to eat and tells Tilly she doesn’t even know who she is.

This dynamic evolves beautifully throughout the film as they reconnect and rebond. Unfortunately, not many films allow for a focus on a mother-daughter relationship – especially how challenging these relationships can be. The Dressmaker is an homage to that relationship, and it’s beautiful.

Other taboos that The Dressmaker deals with are domestic violence and marital rape, misogyny, cross-dressing, even the use of medical cannabis by the elderly. All are topics rarely broached in film, and I commend director Jocelyn Moorhouse for portraying them subtly and carefully. What especially caught me off-guard though, perhaps due to having gone through it recently myself, was the portrayal of the final washing of a passed loved one. Lovingly caring for the dead is not often portrayed in film and its portrayal was sweet, realistic and to the point. While the scene is short, it’s long enough to leave a long-lasting impression.

This is not a heavy-handed drama – to the contrary

Now, don’t think this is a heavy-handed drama. The Dressmaker, despite making such astute observations about the daily challenges of women, is incredibly comical. In fact, it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a very long time – and it’s mostly thanks to Judy Davis’ Molly. Davis single-handedly lifts The Dressmaker from slightly funny to simply hilarious. She never withholds her sharp tongue, which makes for a few excellent one-liners. The scene where Tilly, Teddy (Liam Hemsworth) and she visit the cinema to see Sunset Boulevard is particularly memorable.

One of the biggest surprises of the film, perhaps, is Hugo Weaving. I won’t spoil too much, but his police officer character is one of the most flamboyant lawmen I’ve ever seen, and he is perfectly hilarious. Weaving played in another small Australian production last year (here), and I love that he frequently takes the time to support these smaller projects despite all the big Hollywood franchises he’s attached to.