Kate Winslet and Liam Hemsworth in High Fashion Dramedy “The Dressmaker,”
Kate
Winslet, who rocketed to worldwide audience with her lead role as Rose in the
blockbuster film “Titanic” with Leonardo
DiCaprio stars in the upcoming movie “The Dressmaker,” a hilarious dramedy
clothed in elite fashion where revenge never looked so classy.
Based
on the best-selling novel by Rosalie Ham, “The Dressmaker” is a bittersweet,
comedy-drama set in early 1950s Australia. Tilly Dunnage (Kate Winslet), a
beautiful and talented misfit, after many years working as a dressmaker in
exclusive Parisian fashion houses, returns home to the tiny middle-of-nowhere
town of Dungatar to right the wrongs of the past. Not only does she reconcile
with her ailing, eccentric mother Molly (Judy Davis) and unexpectedly falls in
love with the pure-hearted Teddy (Liam Hemsworth), but armed with her sewing
machine and incredible sense of style, she transforms the women of the town and
in doing so gets sweet revenge on those who did her wrong.
“The
Dressmaker” also includes actors in stellar remarkable roles such as Hugo
Weaving, Sarah Snook, Caroline Goodall, Shane Bourne, Kerry Fox and Rebecca
Gibney and directed by American Film Institute winner Jocelyn Moorhouse
acclaimed for her previous works in “How To Make An American Quilt” starring
Wynona Ryder and “A Thousand Acres” starring Michelle Pfieffer and Colin Firth.
Kate
Winslet remembers: “When I first read the script I was very taken by how
different she was as a woman to anything I’d read for quite a while. There’s a
strength in her that is unflinching and almost aggressive at times because she
has had to overcome so many challenges in order to stay strong and to be the
person that she is.”
Tilly
Dunnage and her mother Molly were always outcasts in Dungatar, baited by the
grasping, nasty inhabitants, but the tragic death of a child - the Pettyman’s
son Stewart - when Tilly was 10 years old, and for which she’s blamed, led to
her expulsion from the town. Now in her 30’s, the unsolved mystery of the death
haunts her, and Tilly returns to seek closure – firstly through clarity of what
really happened, secondly through some measure of revenge. Her strength, her
rare talents, but also her need for love are clear.
Producer
Sue Maslin explains it in this way: “The leading theme of The Dressmake is the
notion of revenge and it’s revenge as a wickedly funny idea, but it’s also
revenge that is a necessity. In Tilly’s case, it’s necessary because she not
only needs to understand why she was victimised as a young child and sent away,
and why her mother has been punished all the years since she left, but more
importantly, she needs to reconcile the truth for herself about what happened.
She needs to forgive herself. She can’t do that in isolation.”
Kate
Winslet finds that: “Tilly is unique and extremely skilled at what she does,
she has a sense of grace and poise that is entirely lacking in the town. I
really admired her very powerful sense of self. She’s vulnerable but does a
really good job of hiding it.”
Of
the novel’s characterisation, Rosalie Ham says: “Tilly Dunnage is reserved,
aloof, an observer, she has instinct, she knows what people are like and she
appeals to the good or the bad in people with her talents. She’s a wounded,
slightly vengeful but not to the extent where she does anything terrible
directly - she puts in place things so that those who deserve it ruin
themselves. It’s her presence in circumstances that causes the chaos, or the
joy.”
Revenge
is back in fashion when “The Dressmaker” opens nationwide this November 4 from
Axinite Digicinema.
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