YMMV / The Dressmaker

• Catharsis Factor: The downfall and subsequent deaths of several awful and abusive townsfolk is extremely cathartic to watch, given how awful their treatment of others were.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Molly Dunnage, who's hilarious one-liners and observations are simply outstanding.
  • Sergeant Farrat, due to Hugo Weaving 's infectious performance.
• Genius Bonus: Anyone who lives in rural Australia knows of the danger of silos and would be very wary of Teddy jumping in, given the number of fatalities they cause.
• Harsher in Hindsight: A number of moments are truly tragic to look back on.
  • Tilly feels that she's finally gained the respect of her neighbours. Then, enters Una Pleasance.
  • Teddy says to Tilly that they should get married and run away. Later, they can't.
  • Teddy persuades Tilly to say that she is no longer cursed. Just as she says it, a truly tragic event happens.
  • Tilly and Molly reconcile, only for Molly to suddenly collapse and pass away.
  • Sergeant Farrat is the only one that sticks by Tilly. He goes above and beyond, confessing to crimes, being sent away from the town.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • When Tilly discovers the letter sent on her behalf by her mother, she realises that the last thing her Mum did before she passed away, was for Tilly.
• Iron Woobie: If Tilly's Pre Ass Kicking One Liner is any indication, all the trauma she went through in her childhood is simply fuel for her revenge.
  "I'm back, you bastards."
• Les Yay: Gertrude is very enthralled by Tilly's beauty. Following her first chat with Tilly at the oval, she licks her lips.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "A murderer... and a lesbian."
• Moral Event Horizon: Where do we start with the citizens of Dungatar? Interestingly, a few crossings of the line led to another character's crossing:
  • Stewart Pettyman was a vicious and cold-hearted bully who enjoyed torturing other kids by headbutting them in their stomachs. His nastiest (and last) act was to threaten Myrtle that he would come at night to murder her mother and assault her if she resisted his headbutting while she was against the wall. He charged head-down at her, intending to cripple her. She moved and he had the decency to put his own useless head out of commission. Which led to...
  • Evan Pettyman, who was a lousy husband and an even worse father, and whose abandonment of his own daughter was the least of his crimes, as he was the one who used slander to get rid of her using his own son's death as an excuse. He did it all with the help of...
  • Beulah who wanted to earn the Mayor's favour and so supported all of Stewart's atrocities and once he got his neck broken, she willingly lied and blamed Myrtle for his murder, something that she remained completely unrepentant of even later in life.
  • Percival Almanac was known for beating his wife and at least once grabbed Myrtle's hand hurting her and verbally abused her by calling her mother a whore and she a bastard.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The most common criticism aimed at the movie was due to the cruel twist and everything that happens after it in the last few minutes. The mood whiplash jarringly turned an otherwise darkly comedic movie into an outright tragedy and, for some, didn't quite fit.

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