The Dress­mak­er

It’s a crit­i­cal cliché to bemoan a movie’s pro­tract­ed length. ​“It’s too darn long!” we moan, as if watch­ing a film were akin to an after-hours shift down an un-sanc­tioned salt mine. And those who com­plain are right to be chid­ed, as announc­ing that a movie is too long becomes a sub­jec­tive com­men­tary about the tol­er­ance lev­els of the view­er. It also slips into that awk­ward ter­rain where the crit­ic is stealth­ily offer­ing edit­ing advice to the film­mak­er – the sub­text of the state­ment is, ​“It’s too long, and here’s how I would’ve done it.” This is advice that no-one wants to hear.

Joce­lyn Moorhouse’s The Dress­mak­er is too long. Sor­ry, but it is. It out­stays its eccen­tric wel­come and devel­ops sup­ple­men­tary nar­ra­tive ten­drils at the very point where most view­ers – dis­cern­ing or oth­er­wise – will be putting on their hat and coat, ready­ing them­selves to shuf­fle out the cin­e­ma to get on with the remain­der of their no doubt busy day. But at that point where, for all intent and pur­pose, the cen­tral plot­line has been wrapped up and, more-or-less, every­one has received their ample just deserts, the film car­ries on, and any good will engen­dered dur­ing that ini­tial 90-minute stretch goes out the door in a rolling ball of fire. And we only say this because the lit­tle dot­ted line along which the words ​“cut here” have been embroi­dered, are so visible.

The film sets itself up as a hab­er­dash­ery-based riff on John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock, with Kate Winslett’s Tilly (née Mytr­le) Dun­nage intro­duced as the aveng­ing angel in the mock design­er threads. Straight off the coach, she gri­maces at the sleepy Aus­tralian berg to which she has returned from years in fash­ion exile, sparks up a cig­a­rette and announces to no-one, ​“I’m back you bas­tards.” Some­thing bad went down, and from that open­ing scene it’s clear that we’re going to find out exact­ly what that was and get to watch as Tilly wreaks her vengeance on the vile townsfolk.

Except, she doesn’t real­ly end up doing that. The sto­ry has her stop­ping over at the rick­ety shack on the hill owned by her moth­er Mad Mol­ly (Judy Davis) and decid­ing to ply her trade, exchang­ing rav­ish­ing gar­ments for infor­ma­tion sur­round­ing a grim day from her youth. At one point, Mol­ly looks at Tilly stitch­ing and barks at her daugh­ter that her centre’s all off. ​“Take the pins out and start over,” she says.

The cen­tre of The Dress­mak­er is also extreme­ly ​“off”, with direc­tor Moor­house offer­ing lit­tle clue as to whether we’re sup­posed to be laugh­ing, swoon­ing, cry­ing or baulk­ing in ter­ror at this lop­sided cou­ture west­ern. While we’re in the habit of offer­ing film­mak­ers unwant­ed advice, it would’ve been great had Davis been the main focal point of the film, as she lights up every scene she’s in, her role as the stub­born, crotch­ety Mol­ly far more inter­est­ing and mys­te­ri­ous than Winslett’s ill-defined lead.