‘The Dressmaker’ Trailer: Kate Winslet Is Armed… With a Sewing Machine

When it was first announced, The Dressmaker sounded like a quirky, dark comedy about an incredibly skilled seamstress who returns to her hometown to take revenge on those who wronged her. The first trailer has arrived and proves that assumption is only half-correct — Kate Winslet does indeed play a talented dressmaker, but the revenge she has in mind is more of the good-natured kind.

The poor choice in music is clearly aimed at some stereotypical notion of what middle-aged women want, and makes the film look like an elevated Lifetime movie. But I’m staying optimistic about The Dressmaker, in which Winslet plays a small-town Australian girl who returns home to find that the locals still hold a grudge against her for the accidental death of a boy when she was much younger.

As the official synopsis below describes it, Winslet’s character comes “armed” with a sewing machine (armed!) and uses her refined dress-making skills to brighten the lives of the townspeople as a form of revenge — kill them with kindness, etc.

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 other thing that really stands out about this trailer is the casting of Liam Hemsworth as Kate Winslet’s love interest. In a time when younger women continually play love interests to much older men on screen, it’s refreshing to see Hemsworth (25) cast as a romantic equal with Winslet (40). In the trailer, Hemsworth’s character says “I haven’t seen her since she was a little girl,” which indicates that the two of them are supposed to be in the same age range. If The Dressmaker does anything right, it’s this bit of casting.

The Dressmaker co-stars Hugo Weaving, Judy Davis and Sarah Snook, and hits theaters in Australia on October 22. There is no official U.S. release date just yet.