Summary
Molly goes to visit Irma Almanac and they discuss the fact that they both use wheelchairs. Tilly introduces herself to Irma, but Irma already knows who she is, and Tilly thanks her for sending food to Molly over the years, giving her some cakes. Irma wanders away, hearing something strange. When Tilly is gone, Molly asks Irma what Tilly did, and Irma tells her that Tilly is alleged to have killed Stewart Pettyman. We see a flashback of boys playing ball, and Myrtle (Tilly as a child) throws Stewart's ball onto the roof of the nearby building. Angered by this Stewart tells everyone to get Myrtle, and she runs away.
Myrtle hides on the roof of a windmill and calls to Gertrude for help, but Gertrude runs away. When the kids are gone, Myrtle climbs back down, and Stewart attacks her. As she screams for Miss Harridene, the teacher ignores her. Stewart threatens to kill Myrtle's mother, "the slut," and then kill her. Back in the present, Irma Almanac realizes that there is no pain in her hands anymore, much to her surprise.
As the footballers get drunk together, Tilly eats dinner with Molly and tries to feed her some soup. Tilly tells Molly that she also lost a child, like Molly did, but Molly says she never had any children. They discuss Madame Vionnet, the woman for whom Tilly worked in France learning to make dresses, and who recommended Tilly to Balenciaga. After telling Molly that she is the one who taught her to sew, Tilly confronts her mother and begs her to say her name. In response, Molly snarls out "Stewart Pettyman" and alludes to the fact that Tilly broke Stewart's neck.
Suddenly, Gertrude appears and shows Tilly the dress she wants. "You'll get what I give you," Tilly says, inviting Gertrude inside. She charges Gertrude 15 shillings for the dress, but then says she will lower her rate if Gertrude tells her whether she told Stewart Pettyman where she was hiding on that fateful day. Gertrude admits that she did.
The scene shifts to the men of the town who are drunkenly clowning around, and one of them challenges Teddy to climb down into a compartment that is swarming with mice. He takes the bait and jumps down into the mice, lying down amidst the mice and laughing. The other men jump down as well.
Mr. Pettyman reads a newspaper, spitting out his coffee when he sees the photo of Tilly and Sergeant Farrat at the football game. Later, Tilly pushes her mother in her wheelchair with a mirror that she wants. Teddy rides up alongside them and offers to give Molly a ride, picking her up and putting her in his carriage. He then tells Tilly that he thinks she came back to Dungatar either for revenge or for him. "Just so you know, both are out of the question," he says, before asking her to the footballers' dance. She declines, and he asks her to go see Sunset Boulevard, which she also declines.
At home, Molly asks why Tilly is not more amenable to Teddy, and scolds her for coming back to Dungatar thinking she can win people over with dresses. Molly then begins to help Tilly pin the dress, offering advice about how to improve it. As Tilly's eyes fill with tears, someone knocks on the door. It's Sergeant Farrat, there for Tilly. As Tilly comes out, Molly grabs her arm, having a traumatic flashback to the day Tilly was taken away.
Inside, Farrat tells Tilly that some citizens of the town have accused her of certain things and goes through a trunk of hers. Inside, he finds only fine silks, gloves, and sequined fabrics. As he unpacks it, he becomes overcome by how beautiful the fabric is, and asks Tilly if he can help make dresses. Farrat goes outside and admires his reflection with one of the fabrics in a mirror tree (a series of mirrors assembled together with branches) outside. Tilly comes outside and realizes that Teddy created the mirror tree, and they smile at one another.
Later, Farrat confides in Tilly that when Stewart Pettyman died, Mr. Pettyman wanted Farrat to send her away, in spite of the fact that Farrat didn't want to. Pettyman then blackmailed Farrat with his knowledge about Farrat's transvestism and penchant for dress design. Tilly goes to visit Teddy, telling him she'll go on a date with him on Saturday night.
The night of the dance, Gertrude arrives in a beautiful dress, which shocks everyone, even stopping the band. She walks over to the band and asks them to play a love song, before walking towards William, who looks entranced. They dance, as the scene shifts to Molly, Tilly, and Teddy at the movie theater watching Sunset Boulevard. As Norma Desmond goes to kiss Joe Gillis in the film, Molly yells out "Run!" much to Tilly and Teddy's amusement. Teddy holds Tilly's hand, as Molly spies on them.
At home, Teddy puts on a Billie Holiday record and admires the fact that Tilly has a copy of Macbeth. Suddenly, he realizes that Molly stole his hip flask, and Tilly wrestles it out of Molly's hands. Molly passes out on the couch.
Analysis
This section takes a more dramatic turn at the start, when Molly asks Irma Almanac what happened to Tilly way back when. Irma informs her that Tilly is alleged to have killed Stewart Pettyman, as Molly looks at her in horror. It is in this moment that the intrigue of Tilly's past, her infamy in the town, comes into focus. While her infamy has been presented rather cheekily up until this point, now it becomes a more horrific and impactful event, as the tone of the film comes to match the gravity of the situation for a moment. The flashbacks match this more horrific and suspenseful tone, leaving it ambiguous as to whether Tilly did indeed kill the boy.
As Tilly ingratiates herself more with the community of Dungatar, we see that these overtures are primarily for the purpose of extracting information and piecing together the events of the day that Stewart died. She walks around the town remembering the day that she is alleged to have done it. Then, when Gertrude comes to get a dress made, she tries to get more information from her about her involvement in the event. Tilly is singleminded and cool in her approach to the people from the past, demanding information and remaining determined to figure out what happened, once and for all.
In the midst of the intrigue of the plot, there is also a romantic element. Teddy and Molly have an instant romantic chemistry. Every time they meet, their rapport suggests that they are well-suited for one another. He does not harbor the typical prejudices against her, and she is charmed by his frankness with her. Still, she does not take his romantic invitations freely, declining his invitation to the dance and to a movie. This shows us that Tilly is singleminded in her desire to enact revenge and clear her name in the town; men are not first and foremost in her mind, even if she has an eligible and interested man interested in her.
Just as the title suggests, Tilly's main passion in life is making dresses, and it is what has saved her from the ruinous fate of having been driven out of town at a young age. She apprenticed with a woman in Paris, learning how to make dresses, before working with first-rate designers, but her interest in the pastime began at home in Dungatar, where her mother taught her to sew. In this section of the film, in the midst of berating Tilly for thinking she can change the course of her life by making dresses, Molly comes over to her fabrics and begins helping her construct a dress. Making dresses is a complicated inheritance for Tilly, something that she shares with a mother who refuses to admit they are related. Though they have a cantankerous and compromised relationship, Molly and Tilly can still share in something by making the dresses. The dresses are a symbol for maternal connection, a sense of feminine agency in a judgmental small town, and for the promise of creating one's own destiny.
Another character who loves making dresses is Sergeant Farrat, who reveals himself to be quite an effeminate dress-lover, in spite of his local status as a policeman. He reveals this love of dressmaking to Molly and Tilly, and asks to help Tilly make dresses in private. Then later, he reveals to Tilly that he did not want to send her away as a child, but that Mr. Pettyman blackmailed him into doing so by threatening to reveal his cross-gender interest in dresses. When faced with the possibility of his career being ruined, Farrat chose to send Tilly away. In this moment, we learn yet more about Tilly's past, in spite of the fact that the event of Stewart's death is still shrouded in mystery.
