FYC: Best Costume Design, The Dressmaker

By Glenn Dunks.

Cinderella. Mirror Mirror. Bright Star. I Am Love. Australia. Marie Antoinette. The list goes on.

The costume design branch so commonly gives films their single solitary Oscar nomination that it’s become a prognosticator mission of sorts to figure out which couture creations the branch will extend this particular honor to. They are also the branch most likely to ignore critical and commercial receptions and nominate based purely on the craft and that’s why we love them. Perhaps it is because costume designers have spent decades being the frills-and-sequin-loving daughter of Oscar when all he wanted was sons, but they use their unique privilege more wisely than others (we’re looking at you, composers!)

It was obvious, then, to me which film I should be championing here and it is Marion Boyce and Margot Wilson for The Dressmaker...

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Kate Winslet's The Dressmaker Joins the Amazon Studios Family

Daniel Crooke here. In the past eight months we’ve seen Kate Winslet in her most peppery Polish accent pin a lifetime of parenting flaws on Steve Jobs, and rule a Mob roost with Russian verve in Triple 9. Audiences down under have already feasted upon her new film The Dressmaker, which won Best Actress honors for Kate, and Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor to Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving, respectively from the Australian Film Institute. Yet despite making its North American debut last year at TIFF, U.S. audiences have unfortunately been kept in the dark. A crying shame, once you’ve seen the splashy hats and dresses, striking desert landscapes, and simmering performances on display in its bold trailer so memorably exalted in Nathaniel’s YNMS.

Now, thanks to Amazon Studios, we will finally witness her smolder with a cigarette as an Aussie farmhouse carelessly blazes over her shoulder.

Amazon has five films currently in and out of the Cannes competition – Woody Allen’s classic Hollywood comedy Café Society, Park Chan-wook’s gothic lesbian thriller The Handmaiden, Jim Jarmusch’s ambling slice of lifer Paterson and Iggy Pop documentary Gimme Shelter, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s fashion world phantasmagoria The Neon Demon – and when you add Spike Lee’s kaleidoscopic Chi-Raq and Kenneth Lonergan’s Sundance pickup Manchester by the Sea to the pile, you’ve got to applaud their team’s adventurous, cine-literate taste. With The Dressmaker, they instill faith in the box-office and streaming potential of female filmmakers, expand their international reach, and continue to stand up for films that don’t snugly fit into classifiable categories bottom-lined with boring expectations. Their added commitment to real theatrical releases begs the question: who says streaming’s killing the cinema?

What do you make of Amazon Studios’ continuing foray into the marketplace? And, more importantly, on a scale of Carnage to Eternal Sunshine, how psyched are you for a new Winslet vehicle?

TIFF: Kate Winslet Goes Couture in 'The Dressmaker'

Glenn here. I'm not in Toronto (booo!), but I did get to see this homegrown film recently so let's talk about The Dressmaker. This is a film that makes a lot better sense when the end credits roll and you realize that director Jocelyn Moorhouse co-wrote the screenplay with her husband, none other than P.J. Hogan. It makes sense because The Dressmaker, despite the refinement suggested by its prestige audience-courting title, is kinda crazy. It is a buoyantly excessive feat of far-fetched camp that isn’t as good as its highly-stylized cinematic cousins of the early 1990s such as Strictly Ballroom, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Hogan’s own Muriel’s Wedding, yet which nonetheless has enough of a unique voice to work as a very Australian piece of crowd-pleasuring fluff. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Betsy Johnson designing an haute couture line for Dior. [more...]

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We Cant Wait! #12 "The Dressmaker"

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's abstew...

Who & What: Writer/Director Jocelyn Moorhouse adapts Rosalie Ham's 2000 novel about a 1950s Australian dressmaker named Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage (Oscar winner Kate Winslet) who returns to her rural Outback home to care for her ailing mother (Oscar nominee Judy Davis). Tilly has not been home since she was 10 years old and forced to leave when she was accused of murder. With her return, she plans to bring the power of haute couture to the village...and seek revenge against those that wronged her.

Moorhouse has described the film as "Unforgiven with a sewing machine" and in addition to Winslet and Davis, stars an impressive Australian cast that includes Liam Hemsworth as Tilly's love interest, Hugo Weaving as the town's police officer, and Sarah Snook and Sacha Horler in supporting roles originally cast with Isla Fisher and Elizabeth Debicki. Creating the film's '50s fashions are Emmy nominated costume designer Marion Boyce with Margot Wilson in charge of Tilly's clothes and 2 custom-made gowns by French designer Sophie Theallet.   

This is apparently what she wears to a rugby game...DIVAWhy We're Excited About It: We love Kate Winslet here at TFE, but just last year I wrote about how Winslet was in need of a career comeback. Divergent was a hit with its built-in YA popular novel source material, but it was hardly her involvement in the project that made it so. (Can you even remember anything she did in it?) This year, on paper, is looking much more promising: the Divergent sequel is a likely hit; she has a supporting role in the all-star cop drama Triple Nine; and then there's a potential awards-buzzy role in Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs (directed by Oscar winner Danny Boyle). Her lead role in this film is most intriguing and will hopefully be a return to form for Winslet who hasn't received an Oscar nomination since her win. 

What If It All Goes Wrong? The fact that director Jocelyn Moorhouse hasn't directed a film since 1997's failed awards contender A Thousand Acres doesn't seem like a good sign. And she never really lived up to her exciting breakthrough with 1991's Australian film Proof. And it could be a tough balancing act tonally as a comedic revenge drama (those seem like 3 different genres). But at least one thing is certain - the clothes will be to die for! 

When: The film finished shooting back in late 2014 and this past February had footage shown to potential European distributors at the Berlin Film Festival. No US date is confirmed yet, but Universal Pictures International has already confirmed an October 1st release date for Australia. If buzz is strong, expect it at fall film festivals in time for awards season.

Previously...
#13 The Hateful Eight
#14 Knight of Cups
#15 Arabian Nights
Intro Pick a Blockbuster