What "The Dressmaker" Made in the Kitchen

Tillie (Kate Winslet) shares her "special" cakes with a neighbor in "The Dressmaker."

I was so engrossed with the tale of "The Dressmaker," a "black comedy of revenge and haute couture" now on Amazon Prime that I nearly missed the pot plot.

Based on the book by Australian author Rosalie Ham, the movie stars Kate Winslet as Tillie Dunnage, a young woman who comes home to her outback Australian hometown and transforms the place with her tenacity, courage and dressmaking skills.

Irma (Julia Blake) munches cakes from Molly (Judy Davis).

One of the many colorful characters in the town is the druggist Mr. Almanac (Barry Otto of Strictly Ballroom), who refuses to treat his wife Irma's painful arthritis with drugs. "Addictive," he says. "All that's needed is God's forgiveness, a clean mind and a wholesome diet." So Tilly brings Irma some "special" cakes she's baked with herbs from her garden. "Unusual aroma," says Irma, who is astonished to find her pain is gone after eating them. The secret herb is revealed in the book when Tilly adds hemp to hot honey to treat her hilariously irascible mother Molly, played by Judy Davis in the movie.

Molly gets into the act when she brings some extra-strength cakes to Irma. "Go easy on them cakes, I made them a bit stronger than she [Tilly] would have," Molly warns her. "She's young; she doesn't understand pain like we do."

Marigold (Alison Whyte) with her Elixir. 

Elsewhere in town, Marigold Pettyman is habitually drugged by her husband with something called Browne's Elixir (chlorodyne, a mixture of laudanum—an alcoholic solution of opium—tincture of cannabis, and chloroform). Marigold escapes from her domestic nightmare when she puts down the elixir and instead visits Tillie to order a really great dress. Tillie also transforms the dowdy shop clerk Trudy (Sarah Snook), fighting off a competing dressmaker. 

The film, which features the splendiferous Liam Hemsworth (Miley's and Katniss's man) as Tillie's love interest Teddy, and adds a delightful ending to the cannabis cake episode involving the local cross-dressing police sergeant, played by Hugo Weaving.

It's almost a modern The Count of Monte Cristo,  another tale of revenge that includes a stylish stranger, and hashish. As in the Spanish TV series The Time Between Seams (aka The Time In Between, now on Netflix), it's nice to watch women reclaiming their power using their traditional skills of sewing – and cooking.