She’s back! The murderess is back!

The Dressmaker

(2015)

(SPOILERS) A gleefully warped, jet black comedy from Jocelyn Moorhouse, one that, for the most part, manages to juggle its potentially jarring shifts in tone and plot. The Dressmaker is a revenge drama, a murder mystery, a comedy of small town jealousies and a morality play concerning dark secrets, in which Kate Winslet’s pariah arrives home and, like a vindictive version of Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, transforms lives through her special gift of seamstressing. But Moorhouse’s approach is closer to Joe Dante’s The ‘Burbs, such that the outback settlement of Dungatar is populated by larger-than-life grotesques and crazies, and is fuelled by a vibrant stylistic approach that veers to the cartoonish.

In 1951, Myrtle Dunnage (Winslet) returns to the town she left a quarter of a century earlier, announcing “I’m back, you bastards”. She has revenge on her mind, and questions she needs answered (“Am I a murderer?”) Myrtle immediately causes a stir, rousing her caustic mother Molly (Judy Davis) from her bed and showing up at a football game in a provocative red number. She proceeds to engineer startling couturial changes on the townsfolk, in particular the fortunes of Gertrude (Sarah Snook), who attracts the attention of hot catch William (James Mackay), much to the disgust of his rich mother (Caroline Goodall). Myrtle has both a staunch defender, the cross-dressing police sergeant (Hugo Weaving) who sent her away all those years before, and a captivated admirer, rugged Teddy (Liam Hemsworth), and the picture unfolds in an unhurried and ramshackle fashion, frequently diverting into character cul-de-sacs when it isn’t picking up the threads of the did she/ didn’t she murder plot.

Indeed, at two hours, The Dressmaker is possibly a little on the over-extended side. Since this is a spoiler review, I’ll note that I assumed something of note had to happen in the last half hour, because by the 90-minute mark we had reached a “happily ever after” point with Teddy that seemed entirely out-of-sorts with the film’s deliciously unsentimental premise. So, while some may be distressed at Teddy’s demise in silo of sorghum, I felt it entirely appropriate. Indeed, the succession of deaths that follow run the gamut of tragic (Molly), hilarious (Barry Otto’s no good, wife-beating, paedophile hunchback local chemist) and appropriately gruesome (Shane Bourne’s malignant rapist), but all are in sync with a picture that has unfurled a broad, quirky canvas; it’s only the romance, as well-played as it is, that doesn’t feel built to last.

I admired Moorhouse’s Proof, but she rather lost me when she departed for America, so it’s encouraging to see her back on her own turf, delivering something so distinctive (Moorhouse adapted Rosalie Ham’s novel with her husband PJ Hogan). Of course, the eccentricity inevitably suggests other films and filmmakers. I was particularly impressed with how reliant (in a good way) the picture is on its score, a wonderful piece from David Hirschfelder, to carry the shifts in tone; playful (he gets on board with the western element, Winslet as the gunslinger returning to town to right wrongs), emotive, with just the right kind of complementary verve (such that when the picture occasionally seems unsure of its path, Hirschfelder is there to guide it). Coming across like Michael Nyman by way of Carter Burwell (there’s definitely a Coen Brothers feel to the pitch black humour), but as if applied to a Jeanne-Pierre Jeunet, it’s one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard recently.

Moorhouse has also assembled a quite superlative cast. Winslet and Davis are at the centre, exhibiting marvellous chemistry as the feuding/loving mother and daughter, the latter taking full advantage of her frequently hilarious, outrageous/outspoken dialogue to steal the show. Weaving’s sensitive sergeant is adorable, while Snook who can do no wrong in anything, essaying a transformation from dowdy to gorgeous while transitioning from vaguely sympathetic to callous and horrid and remaining recognisably the same character throughout.

Goodall is also great, and Kerry Fox, in a far cry from Shallow Grave, is the despicable, Machiavellian school mistress. Moorhouse even elicits a memorable performance from Liam Hemsworth, something I scarcely thought possible. Maybe it’s because he’s using his own accent, or simply because his Hollywood roles are so indifferent, but this is the first time he’s made any kind of impression in anything I’ve seen. It’s difficult not to note the age gap between Winslet and Hemsworth/Snook, since they’re intended to be of the same generation, but it’s never something that feels like a deal breaker.

Some of the plot twists (the developmentally disabled brother of Teddy is able to provide the crucial evidence in the murder) seem rather derivative, and there are times The Dressmaker becomes a bit too shaggy dog for its own good, but the general milieu and tone are so inviting that it’s hard to resist. And I admire that the picture sticks to its guns, in terms of attitude, not copping out; next to no one in Dungatar is virtuous or repentant (save Weaving, who must atone for past sins against Myrtle), and Moorhouse is unstinting on the retribution in a way that proves both funny and fitting. A very pleasant surprise, and hopefully The Dressmaker’s director won’t take another 18 years to make her fifth feature.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

Mondo bizarro. No offence man, but you’re in way over your head.

The X-Files 8.7: Via Negativa I wasn’t as down on the last couple of seasons of The X-Files as most seemed to be. For me, the mythology arc walked off a cliff somewhere around the first movie, with only the occasional glimmer of something worthwhile after that. So the fact that the show was tripping over itself with super soldiers and Mulder’s abduction/his and Scully’s baby (although we all now know it wasn’t, sheesh ), anything to stretch itself beyond breaking point in the vain hope viewers would carry on dangling, didn’t really make much odds. Of course, it finally snapped with the wretched main arc when the show returned, although the writing was truly on the wall with Season 9 finale The Truth . For the most part, though, I found 8 and 9 more watchable than, say 5 or 7. They came up with their fair share of engaging standalones, one of which I remembered to be Via Negativa .

Schnell, you stinkers! Come on, raus!

Private’s Progress (1956) (SPOILERS) Truth be told, there’s good reason sequel I’m Alright Jack reaps the raves – it is, after all, razor sharp and entirely focussed in its satire – but Private’s Progress is no slouch either. In some respects, it makes for an easy bedfellow with such wartime larks as Norman Wisdom’s The Square Peg (one of the slapstick funny man’s better vehicles). But it’s also, typically of the Boulting Brothers’ unsentimental disposition, utterly remorseless in rebuffing any notions of romantic wartime heroism, nobility and fighting the good fight. Everyone in the British Army is entirely cynical, or terrified, or an idiot.

Isn’t it true, it’s easier to be a holy man on the top of a mountain?

The Razor’s Edge (1984) (SPOILERS) I’d hadn’t so much a hankering as an idle interest in finally getting round to seeing Bill Murray’s passion project. Partly because it seemed like such an odd fit. And partly because passion isn’t something you tend to associate with any Murray movie project, involving as it usually does laidback deadpan. Murray, at nigh-on peak fame – only cemented by the movie he agreed to make to make this movie – embarks on a serious-acting-chops dramatic project, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s story of one man’s journey of spiritual self-discovery. It should at least be interesting, shouldn’t it? A real curio? Alas, not. The Razor’s Edge is desperately turgid.

It’s not as if she were a… maniac, a raving thing.

Psycho (1960) (SPOILERS) One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom . One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those negative elements remain irrelevant to its overall power.

My Doggett would have called that crazy.

The X-Files 9.4: 4-D I get the impression no one much liked Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), but I felt, for all the sub-Counsellor Troi, empath twiddling that dogged her characterisation, she was a mostly positive addition to the series’ last two years (of its main run). Undoubtedly, pairing her with Doggett, in anticipation of Gillian Anderson exiting just as David Duchovny had – you rewatch these seasons and you wonder where her head was at in hanging on – made for aggressively facile gender-swapped conflict positions on any given assignment. And generally, I’d have been more interested in seeing how two individuals sympathetic to the cause – her and Mulder – might have got on. Nevertheless, in an episode like 4-D you get her character, and Doggett’s, at probably their best mutual showing.

You have done well to keep so much hair, when so many’s after it.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) (SPOILERS) Hitherto, I was most familiar with Jeremiah Johnson in the form of a popular animated gif of beardy Robert Redford smiling and nodding in slow zoom close up (a moment that is every bit as cheesy in the film as it is in the gif). For whatever reason, I hadn’t mustered the enthusiasm to check out the 1970s’ The Revenant until now (well, beard-wise, at any rate). It’s easy to distinguish the different personalities at work in the movie. The John Milius one – the (mythic) man against the mythic landscape; the likeably accentuated, semi-poetic dialogue – versus the more naturalistic approach favoured by director Sydney Pollack and star Redford. The fusion of the two makes for a very watchable, if undeniably languorous picture. It was evidently an influence on Dances with Wolves in some respects, although that Best Picture Oscar winner is at greater pains to summon a more sensitive portrayal of Native Americans (and thus, perversely, at times a more patr

I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.

North by Northwest (1959) (SPOILERS) North by Northwest gets a lot of attention as a progenitor of the Bond formula, but that’s giving it far too little credit. Really, it’s the first modern blockbuster, paving the way for hundreds of slipshod, loosely plotted action movies built around set pieces rather than expertly devised narratives. That it delivers, and delivers so effortlessly, is a testament to Hitchcock, to writer Ernest Lehmann, and to a cast who make the entire implausible exercise such a delight.

You’re a disgrace, sir... Weren’t you at Harrow?

Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead (1966) (SPOILERS) I hadn’t seen this one in more than three decades, and I had in mind that it was a decent spy spoof, well populated with a selection of stalwart British character actors in supporting roles. Well, I had the last bit right. I wasn’t aware this came from the stable of producer Harry Alan Towers, less still of his pedigree, or lack thereof, as a sort of British Roger Corman (he tried his hand at Star Wars with The Shape of Things to Come and Conan the Barbarian with Gor , for example). More legitimately, if you wish to call it that, he was responsible for the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu flicks. Our Man in Marrakesh – riffing overtly on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana in title – seems to have in mind the then popular spy genre and its burgeoning spoofs, but it’s unsure which it is; too lightweight to work as a thriller and too light on laughs to elicit a chuckle.

The best thing in the world for the inside of a man or a woman is the outside of a horse.

Marnie (1964) (SPOILERS) Hitch in a creative ditch. If you’ve read my Vertigo review, you’ll know I admired rather than really liked the picture many fete as his greatest work. Marnie is, in many ways, a redux, in the way De Palma kept repeating himself in the early 80s only significantly less delirious and… well, compelling. While Marnie succeeds in commanding the attention fitfully, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. And Hitch, digging his heels in as he strives to fashion a star against public disinterest – he failed to persuade Grace Kelly out of retirement for Marnie Rutland – comes entirely adrift with his leads.

Look out the window. Eden’s not burning, it’s burnt.

Reign of Fire (2002) (SPOILERS) There was good reason to believe Rob Bowman would make a successful transition from top-notch TV director to top-notch film one. He had, after all, attracted attention and plaudits for Star Trek: The Next Generation and become such an integral part of The X-File s that he was trusted with the 1998 leap to the big screen. That movie wasn’t the hit it might have been – I suspect because, such was Chris Carter’s inability to hone a coherent arc, it continued to hedge its bets – but Bowman showed he had the goods. And then came Reign of Fire . And then Elektra . And that was it. Reign of Fire is entirely competently directed, but that doesn’t prevent it from being entirely lousy.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog