The Dressmaker (2015)

THE DRESSMAKER  (2015)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jocelyn Moorhouse
    Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Hugo Weaving,
    Liam Hemsworth, Sarah Snook, Kerry Fox,
    Shane Bourne, Barry Otto, Julia Blake
Two hours of eccentricity from Down Under starring Kate Winslet as a seamstress who brings revenge and high fashion to a dust-speck town in the outback. It's a spaghetti western. No, it's a melodrama. No, it's a murder mystery. No, it's a black comedy. No, it's a romance. It's all of those things on an ever-shifting basis, and the crazy thing is, it works. Hugo Weaving steals a scene or two as a cross-dressing constable, but the movie really belongs to Judy Davis as Kate's mad old mom. "Mad Molly" might be unhinged, but she's not completely delusional, and there's a reason she's gone over the edge. Davis shows not just how thinly stretched her grip on reality has become, but how tenaciously she's still hanging on. And Molly's got a score to settle, too. Forget the old Klingon proverb. Revenge is a dish best served with needles and thread, a few well-aimed golf balls, a little hashish and a devious sense of fun.