You can count on one thing when a period drama is announced. It’ll likely star one of the English K’s. Keira Knightley or Kate Winslet. Having turned her hand to nigh on every on-screen profession, Kate Winslet has signed on to star in and as The Dressmaker.
Based on the novel by Rosalie Ham, the English Rose will take the lead in the 1950s-set period thriller. She will play Tilly, a woman once ostracised by her community. After being accused of murder she returns home to exact her revenge. Here’s the book’s official blurb from publisher Duffy and Snellsgrove:
Dungatar is a small country town, where the townspeople’s eccentricities are many and varied – from Sergeant Farrat’s predilection for cross-dressing, to pharmacist Almanac’s retributive scheme of potion dispensing, not to forget the affairs and assorted dark secrets. But none of these can compare to the sin of Tilly and her mother: to have come from somewhere else. At first ostracised, the townspeople gradually accept her in order to make use of her extraordinary dressmaking skills and, at last, Tilly feels that she might have found home.
But small towns are strange places, where vanity rules, and, once again reviled, she sets out to teach the town a lesson. In the process she faces the ghosts of her past, and wreaks a havoc that provides a most satisfying revenge.
Winslet is currently filming Alan Rickman’s landscape gardening drama, A Little Chaos, in Australia. Shooting on this next flick is scheduled to begin this Autumn. From a read of the synopsis, it’s not a huge departure in terms of content for the leading lady. Having said that, Winslet is the only actress working in cinema who can make anything she’s in worth seeing.
She’ll work under the direction of  Jocelyn Moorhouse. Moorhouse has four titles under her directorial belt; Pavane, Proof, How To Make An American Quilt and A Thousand Acres. The Dressmaker will mark the close of the biggest sabbatical in her career. Over a decade will have elapsed once the cameras start rolling on the film.  A history of work with small, female-driven features stands behind producer Sue Maslin whose most recent titles include Irresistible and Japanese Story.
Embankment Films will begin sales for The Dressmaker at Cannes.
