The Dressmaker is a 2015 Australian comedy drama film co-written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Rosalie Ham.

[4][5][6][7][8] It stars Kate Winslet as femme fatale dressmaker, Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage, who returns to a small Australian town to take care of her ailing, mentally unstable mother.

[9] The film explores the themes of revenge and creativity and was described by Moorhouse as "Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven with a sewing machine".

Sergeant Farrat confesses to Tilly that Stewart's father Evan, a town councillor, blackmailed him for secretly being a cross-dresser.

Tilly drunkenly objects to the music, and inadvertantly injures Beulah when she throws the record player off the verandah in the dark.

Declaring that she is no longer cursed, Tilly sets fire to her house and sends a paraffin-soaked bolt of red fabric rolling down the hill into town.

After the initial project was shelved, Maslin optioned the rights of the novel in 2009[23] and brought Moorhouse on board to direct and write the screenplay for the film.

Maslin said, "She (Moorhouse) was living in Los Angeles and I flew there twice to talk to her (about coming back to Australia to make the film).

[8][24] Kate Winslet and Judy Davis joined the cast of the film as Myrtle "Tilly" and Molly Dunnage respectively in August 2013.

[27] Maslin had Winslet and Davis in mind from the start of the project for the roles but knew that securing both of them would not be easy, saying, "Kate gets sent hundreds of scripts a year, and chooses two or three.

She fell in love with Tilly, so it was all down to Jocelyn and her beautiful script"[24] and "I've been trying to get Judy to work with me for about 20 years, I always offer her things and so does my husband.

"[28] Liam Hemsworth as Teddy McSwiney, Isla Fisher as Gertrude Pratt and Elizabeth Debicki as Una joined the cast in early May 2014.

"[30] In early October 2014, Hugo Weaving joined the cast as Sergeant Farrat, a secret cross-dressing police officer of Dungatar.

[31][32] On 10 October 2014, it was announced that Debicki had dropped out of the film to play the lead in The Kettering Incident and had been replaced by Sacha Horler.

[51] In October 2014, Margot Wilson came on board as the costume designer for Tilly Dunnage's wardrobe worn by Winslet in the film.

[52] Additional retro clothes and accessories were provided by a shop named Retropolitan, located in West Annapolis, United States.

[60][61] Filming also took place at different towns in Victoria, Australia including Mount Rothwell, Little River, Horsham, and in the Wimmera region.

[41] Interior scenes were filmed at the Docklands Studios, where an artificial silo,[62] and part of Dungatar town, including Molly Dunnage's house, were constructed on the sound stage.

[67] Hemsworth only joined the filming in late November 2014 because of his prior commitment to the promotion of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

[80] Post-production started in mid-December 2014, and took place at Soundfirm Melbourne, with Moorhouse, editor Jill Bilcock and music composer David Hirschfelder[81][82] and was finished by 30 June 2015.

It is Hirschfelder's first collaboration with Moorhouse and second with Maslin, with whom he previously worked on Ann Turner's 2006 mystery drama film Irresistible.

The site's critical consensus reads, "The Dressmaker boasts a strong central performance by Kate Winslet and a captivating array of narrative weirdness -- all of which may or may not be a comfortable fit with viewers.

[113] Justin Chang of Variety gave the film a positive review, saying, "Moorhouse's adaptation of Rosalie Ham's 2000 novel may lead audiences to expect a primmer, more well-behaved movie based on its title alone, but that doesn't mean it won't have them in stitches" and praised Winslet and Davis's performances: "Winslet, a difficult actress to root against under any circumstances, has us in her palm from the moment she steps into frame, looking like an avenging dark angel bathed in ’50s noir shadows."

and "Davis, whose performance here as a booze-swilling, dementia-addled and infernally sharp-tongued old matriarch is enough of a hoot to make one further wonder what she might have done with the role of Violet Weston in August: Osage County, onscreen or onstage.

"[114] Sarah Ward of Screen International noted, "Light comedy, romantic drama, small-town secrets and revenge schemes might not seem an easy or winning mix; however in The Dressmaker, the combination fits."

"[116] Jon Frosch in his review for The Hollywood Reporter said, "The Dressmaker is about as far from essential viewing as one could imagine, but, for all its brightly glaring flaws, much of it qualifies as a glossy, goofy guilty pleasure.

"[117] However, Kevin Jagernauth in his review for Indiewire criticised the film, writing that it "wants to be a saucy and absurd tale of small town scandal, only to then attempt to try and turn the story completely inside out", which he describes as "a potentially interesting concept" that the movie "never commits to".

However, he praised the cast: "Winslet anchors the lead role with sexiness and confidence, staying measured even [when] the movie around her isn't" and describes Judy Davis "stealing most of the scenes", and being "hilarious as Tilly's eccentric oddball mother".

[118] Gregory Ellwood of HitFix gave the film a negative review and said, "it's hard to mix over-the-top comedy and serious drama.

"[119] Benjamin Lee of The Guardian gave the film two stars out of five, saying, "The film is a tonally uneven, genre-shifting hurricane of a thing, wildly careering off the rails and smashing into everything in its view,"[120] but Jake Wilson for The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that its "lurches from broad comedy to grim melodrama and back are evidently intentional, part of a strategy for throwing the viewer off-balance, along with the dramatic colour contrasts and spatial distortions ... and called it a "hoot and a shock to the system" that could be regarded as the "long-delayed feminist answer to Wake in Fright".