A Stitch In Time
Rating: *** ½
Sasha Hayden’s Australian A Stitch In Time is a kind of true-to-life fairytale that we seldom get to see, at least not done with such grace and rhythm.
Its protagonist is Lieba 60-plus housewife , played with such temperate determination by Maggie Blinco, whose dreams have been crushed under the wheels of a loveless marriage to a bully (Glen Shorrock,despicably bang-on) who believes it is his prerogative as a male spouse to insult his wife in front of friends and strangers alike.
Watching Liebe being taunted I was reminded of a brilliant 2017 Malayalam film Ottamuri Velicham where the husband Chandran (Deepak Parambol) night after night keeps a multi-coloured light on overhead in the handkerchief-sized cubicle he shares with his wife Sudha(Vinitha Koshy).
Imagine a wife enduring a husband who keeps that light on to torture his wife not literally but symbolically, and we have Liebe’s life.
Happily Liebe is no walkover, at least not for too long. Like many tortured ‘invisibilized’ cinematic wives before her Liebe just decides to walk out one day. Initially it seems like a new beginning when her affluent best friend Christine(Belinda Giblin) not only takes her on but also opens a whole new world for Liebe to walk into.
The future of course is not what it seems. A Stitch In Time is the story of a frail aging woman rising from the ashes.It differs from other films about rebellious wives in that the hurrahs and bravura brownie points are avoided. We are so taken up with Liebe’s struggle to stand on her own feet that we never notice the script cheering her on.
This is a film that shows us how important selfreliance is. At some point Liebe’s struggle seems to have hit a deadend. But the way people around her pick up the pieces of her life makes for a truly inspiring fairytale.
There is a very special bonding between Liebe and a young charming Chinese dress designer Hamish (Hoa Xuande) which reminded me of Leslie Mansville’s young French friend in Mrs Harris Goes To Paris.
It is invigorating to see women in the winter of their lives chasingdreams. It is even more heartening to see this Australian film embracing sentimentality. The last fifteen minutes of this effortlessly enrapturing film when Liebe looks after her dying husband is an unabashed homage to Shakti Smanta’s Amar Prem eventhough Sasha Hayden might have never heard of Amar Prem.
But then destroyed dreams and belated atonement are universal themes.
