'The Dressmaker' received mixed reviews from its Toronto International Film Festival screening. The film can be funny and quirky but it comes from the silliness of the film. 'The Dressmaker' has woven confusion caused by too many things thrown into the fray. This has left many critics bewildered on where the film was really trying to go.
In a review by The Hollywood Reporter, is far from "essential viewing". 'The Dressmaker' has "so many plates spinning at so many different speeds" that people wonder what the director, Jocelyn Moorhouse, wanted to really do. The story revolves around Kate Winslet's character Tilly, a high fashion couturier that, primarily, comes home to her backwater town to uncover the truth behind a murder she was accused of when she was 10. It would have been fine if that was all, but no.
Second, she also wants to take vengeance to those who wronged her because of that. Third, she copes with her mother-turned-hermit who doesn't remember her and hates her when she does. Fourth, she works on transforming the unfashionable women of her hometown through her haute couture skills. Fifth, she has to deal with the arrival of a rival couturier. Last but not the least, she juggles a romance with the local hunk Teddy, played by Liam Hemsworth.
With just this, it is understandably too much. The Telegraph echoes this sentiment, comparing the film to "an orchard of absurdities, every one of them overripe and plopping from the tree." The talented Kate Winslet managed to do an Australian accent, however salvaging the film is beyond her.
The Guardian points out glaring inconsistencies in the film. Winslet's Tilly is 39 but was classmates with Sarah Snook's character who is 28. Hemsworth's Teddy is 25 and remembers her before she her departure at age 10. Obviously, that's 29 years ago so he wasn't even conceived then.
Judy Davis, who plays Tilly's mother, provides relief in this mad scramble for a lot of things.While her high pitched performance entertains, critics say it ultimately doesn't save the film from the "sudsy melodrama" and the "torturously fumbling pace."
This is Moorhouse's comeback from an 18 year hiatus. While some of the many problems may have originated from the source material, Moorhouse could have done better than to try to take it all. 'The Dressmaker's' potential fun if one ignores the problems mentioned and unmentioned by the critics can perhaps give the film a comeback in the sales department.
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