Lisa is hired as a new assistant at Goode's department store in Sydney during the 1959 Christmas season. She makes friends with Fay, who is initially wary of immigrants, Patty, who seeks more attention from her husband, and Magda, an immigrant from Slovenia who introduces her to her other European friends. Patty buys a pink nightdress to get her the attention from her husband she seeks, but he believes he has upset her with his attention and disappears for the season. Magda invites Lisa and Fay to a New Year's Eve party at Magda's house and introduces Fay to Rudi, a Hungarian immigrant who is looking for a wife. Lisa is introduced to Michael, the son of Hungarian immigrants to Australia. A dress Lisa wants to buy is marked down from 150 guineas to 75 guineas during the next summer sale, then later to 50 guineas.
Patty's husband returns and they reconcile when she explains she wants his attention, and Patty soon becomes pregnant. Lisa gets honours on her school leaving exam and applies for a scholarship at Sydney University after getting the approval of her father. Rudi buys a new apartment and proposes to Fay in it. Lisa is upset the dress she likes is no longer on display, but Magda has only hidden it away now so it has been reduced to 35 guineas, which Lisa can now afford. She buys the dress and wears it to a party celebrating her test scores. Magda says she has picked out a location for a store where she will sell high-end fashion. Magda asks Lisa what she will do after finishing her studies at Sydney University and Lisa says she wants to be an actress, or a poet, or a novelist, or maybe all three.
Ladies in Black was twenty years in the making, with writer-director Bruce Beresford attached to the project. Beresford and novelist Madeleine St John, who wrote the book of which the film is an adaptation, were university friends, and Beresford had promised to one day adapt her novel into film since first reading it around its original publication.[7]Ladies in Black is the film that almost got away from Beresford and his friend and producer Sue Milliken, a film the funding agencies kept rejecting. But the X-factor was the involvement of Allanah Zitserman as co-producer. Zitserman's credentials include: producer of three movies, including Russian Doll (2001) and the founder and director of Dungog Film Festival in NSW's Hunter Region. "If it hadn't been for Allanah's dynamism, we'd never have got the money" says Beresford. "She was relentless."[8]
Exterior of the former Mark Foy's store, currently the Downing Centre, was used as "Goode's" department store
In October 2017, the cast was announced, with principal production commencing that month in Sydney, Australia.[9][10]
Prior to release, Ladies in Black was projected to have "a sizable opening weekend and a long run sustained by word-of-mouth and repeat business."[13] On its opening weekend, the film earned $1,865,134 in Australia, placing second behind Johnny English Strikes Again.[1]
Critical response
Ladies in Black received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Ladies in Black gleans socially relevant observations from Australian history with entertaining flair, embroidering a tale that touches on immigration and female empowerment with a fashionable pizazz [sic]."[14]
Neil Young of The Hollywood Reporter said of the film, "Ladies in Black quietly but effectively points out the seldom-stressed positives of immigration and integration, and thus deserves attention far beyond its own native shores".[15] Jake Wilson in The Sydney Morning Herald says the period details "carry the authority of first-hand experience".[16] Australian film critic David Stratton, writing for The Australian, wrote "Ladies in Black may be seen mistakenly as lightweight or slight; it isn't. It brims with subtext and nuance and at the same time succeeds in being a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment."[17]
