Kritiken

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.

Shaken into a giddy cocktail of genres (black comedy, romance, melodrama, tragedy and murder mystery, with a western garnish), it's a hot mess of a film, albeit one with an enjoyably high-and-handsome style to it, drawing both on Moorhouse's female-centric How to Make an American Quilt (1995) and on the sharp tragicomedy of Hogan's Muriel's Wedding (1994).

Set in 1951 and always looking the period part, The Dressmaker provides many a ravishing sight — including Tilly's football match-stopping appearance in a figure-hugging, eye-catching red dress — with the intricate work of costume designers Marion Boyce and Margot Wilson clearly pivotal. And yet, the narrative is as engaging as the custom-built, dust-laced setting

Little here "works" in any traditional sense of that word, but the film boasts enough manic energy and straight-up weirdness to keep you entertained before overstaying its welcome in the final act.