Summary
At the general store, people gossip about Tilly's situation, speculating about whether she murdered Teddy. Molly arrives at the store and tells them, "It was you lot killed Teddy. He died trying to prove his love for her was stronger than your hate." She tells them that they are the curse, before seeing an advertisement for a theater competition between Winyerp and Dungatar. She implies that Myrtle will make the costumes for the production in Winyerp.
Molly asks Tilly to make her some clothes, but she's incredibly depressed. She tells Tilly that she met Mr. Pettyman when she was 20, and that Mr. Pettyman married his wife for her money. "He had you sent away to hurt me," Molly says, and Tilly tells her that she came back to Dungatar for her mother.
The Dungatar Social Committee visits Tilly at home to ask her to make the costumes for the theater competition, for their production of Macbeth. Gertrude, who goes by "Trudy" now, is directing. Tilly refuses, and leaves the room abruptly. Throwing away all of her sewing tools, Tilly tells Molly that she does not want to help the town, but Molly comforts her and tells her that, even though it is sad that she was sent away, going away allowed her to become a dressmaker, and create beautiful things. "You can transform people. That's very powerful. Use it. Use it against them," Molly tells her, and tells her a revenge plan.
Molly visits Mrs. Almanac to ask her to mail something for her, and drops off some cakes baked with marijuana for Mrs. Almanac's pain. As she leaves Mrs. Almanac's, Molly suffers a stroke and dies.
One night, Mr. Harredine hears ruckus coming from Tilly's, and finds Tilly and Farrat drunkenly commemorating Molly's passing. Tilly is dressed as Molly and pretends to be her, as Harredine spies from the window. Not seeing Harredine, Tilly throws a large box out the window and it lands on the schoolteacher's head, and he suffers a brutal head injury.
The next day, Mr. Almanac falls into a pond and Mrs. Almanac's nurse finds the brownies that Molly gave Mrs. Almanac. Recognizing that there is hashish in the brownies, the nurse becomes determined to get Tilly sent to jail. When Tilly wakes up, she is greeted at the door by the women from the Winyerp Drama Club, whom Molly contacted. They want Tilly to make their costumes, and Tilly agrees. Farrat takes the fall for the hashish cakes, and goes to jail in Tilly's place, to make up for the fact that he took her away all those years ago.
Tilly visits Mrs. Pettyman and tells her the story of Stewart's death. When Mr. Pettyman arrives home, Mrs. Pettyman confronts him about the fact that he has been using her all these years, has had many affairs, and is Tilly's illegitimate father. She grabs a knife and slices his legs, before leaving the room.
The day of the play competition arrives. While Dungatar's costumes are sorely lacking, and Evan Pettyman is nowhere to be seen, Winyerp's costumes for The Mikado are much more finely crafted. As the competition goes on, Tilly lights her old house on fire, unfurls a long red carpet all the way down to the village, and lights that on fire as well.
The Dungatar troop gathers in a circle and discovers that Mrs. Pettyman murdered Mr. Pettyman. Dungatar loses the competition only to return to the town completely on fire. Tilly leaves on a train, with plans to go to Paris.
Analysis
As everything falls apart in Tilly's life, Molly becomes her advocate. At the store, she explains to the other townspeople, who are gossiping about Tilly, that they are the real curse, and suggests that Tilly will be making costumes for Dungatar's rival town in a theater competition. She then sits by Tilly's bedside and tries to get her back in good spirits, finally coming clean about her past and the fact that Pettyman is Tilly's father. For the first time in the film, we see a more tender, loving side of Molly.
Part of Tilly's redemption comes in her realization that her gifts for creation have made her life better. In spite of all the tragedy that has befallen her, Molly reminds her that leaving Dungatar changed her life for the better, because it turned her into a dressmaker and gave her creative gifts. "You can transform people," Molly tells her, and Tilly begins to realize that her ostracism has been a gift all along, a chance at a bigger and more varied life than anyone in Dungatar has ever seen.
For every lighthearted moment in the film, there's an attendant tragedy. Just after Tilly and Molly have repaired their relationship and started making plans to avenge the injustices done to them, Molly suffers a stroke and dies. Tilly goes rather rapidly from having a small community in the unfriendly town to having no one to look after her and provide her with support. After Molly's death, she is pretty much on her own, forced to become her own best ally.
Tilly takes Molly's advice, and uses her power to pit people against Dungatar. She works for Winyerp to create beautiful costumes for their production, and informs Mrs. Pettyman of her husband's misdeeds, which leads her to kill Mr. Pettyman. The cathartic revenge that Tilly has wanted to enact finally takes place, when she uses her talents to sabotage Dungatar's chances at winning the drama competition and sees to it that the much-abused Mrs. Pettyman gets the information she needs. As her last dramatic act, she lights the whole town on fire.
The film is a tonally complex dark comedy, filled with tragic and comic scenes alike. The dark humor of the film allows director Jocelyn Moorhouse to vividly reflect the complications of small-town gossip, social disgrace, injustice, and revenge. Life is a big messy mix of emotional ups and downs, triumphs, and revenge, according to the film. The drama of the narrative is at times whimsical, and at other times grave and tragic, reaching operatic levels that match the dramatic couture that Tilly creates. The drama and boldness of the film are typified by the final sequence, in which Tilly wanders out of the town, impeccably dressed, after lighting the whole thing on fire.
