The Dressmaker

On April 10, 1912, Tess Collins, a young English seamstress trapped in domestic servitude at a household in Cherbourg, France, decides to flee. She collects her meager wages and rushes to the docks, hoping to find work on the enormous new ship sailing for New York, but all service positions have been filled.

On the dock, Tess spots Lady Lucile Duff Gordon, the world-famous fashion designer, whose personal maid has just canceled. Desperate, Tess shows Lucile a collar she hand-copied from one of Lucile's published designs. Impressed by the stitching, Lucile hires Tess as her maid. Lucile's husband, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, arranges passage, and Tess boards the Titanic.

During the first days of the voyage, Tess navigates the world of first-class travel. She meets Jack Bremerton, a charming Chicago millionaire who treats her as an equal, and a young sailor who encourages her after she spills a tea service on deck. Lucile tests Tess by having her assemble a wool jacket without a pattern; Tess's meticulous work earns grudging respect. Lucile begins confiding in Tess and gives her a silk dressing gown.

On the evening of April 14, the unnamed sailor coaxes Tess into a playful skip across the promenade deck. Later, Jack defends Tess when a steward falsely blames her for a brandy spill on Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, the company that owns the Titanic. Jack escorts her into the first-class dining room, and they talk under the stars before parting.

Shortly before midnight, a bump jolts Tess awake. On deck, chaos unfolds as crew members struggle to launch lifeboats and families are torn apart. Lucile commandeers Lifeboat One, a collapsible emergency boat, and insists it be launched. Just as Tess is about to jump in, a passenger named Mr. Hoffman thrusts his two small French-speaking sons into her arms, begging her to save them. The lifeboat drops away before she can board. She glimpses the sailor, now identified as Jim Bonney, reaching for her. Mrs. Margaret Brown, a brash, wealthy woman from Colorado, helps Tess and the boys into another crowded lifeboat. As it descends, a desperate father holds up a small girl with a yellow ribbon, begging Tess to take her. The boat swings away before Tess can reach the child.

Tess and Mrs. Brown seize the oars when the crewmen cannot row. The Titanic rises vertically, then plunges beneath the surface, leaving darkness and the sound of the dying. At dawn, the rescue ship Carpathia appears.

Aboard the Carpathia, Tess entrusts the Hoffman boys to a French-speaking passenger and sees the Duff Gordons and Jim brought from the nearly empty Lifeboat One. Lucile insists on a group photograph of the survivors. Jim refuses. Lucile denounces Jean Darling, one of the survivors, for disguising her husband Jordan as a woman to sneak him aboard. Jim tells Tess that Lucile refused to let the crew row back for people in the water. Tess defends Lucile but is shaken. In a private conversation, Lucile admits she has always been afraid of water after a childhood near-drowning. Before reaching New York, Jim gives Tess a carefully carved wooden lifeboat with two tiny figures holding oars.

Reporter Pinky Wade of the New York Times disguises herself as a man and sneaks aboard the tugboat carrying Senator William Alden Smith, who is racing to serve subpoenas before survivors can scatter. On the Carpathia, Pinky meets Tess, who tells her about the nearly empty Lifeboat One.

Thousands of grieving families wait at the New York pier. At the Waldorf-Astoria, Lucile hosts a celebratory dinner and delivers a dramatic account of her survival. Pinky challenges her about the lifeboat, insisting that survival alone is not enough when others lost everything. Tess follows Pinky to express agreement. Lucile catches Tess and coldly orders her to her room.

The U.S. Senate hearings begin at the Waldorf. Mrs. Brown reveals that Mr. Hoffman was actually Michel Navratil, who had kidnapped his own sons from their living mother. Pinky publishes a front-page story accusing the Duff Gordons of bribing sailors not to go back for survivors. Lucile blames Jim and warns Tess to choose sides. Jim comes to find Tess, and they walk through Central Park together. Jim is then ordered to Washington for further hearings and leaves a note asking Tess to meet him, but Cosmo intercepts and destroys it. Tess believes Jim left without a word.

Lucile's sister, the novelist Elinor Glyn, arrives from Europe and privately instructs Tess to act as Lucile's eyes and ears at the shop. Cosmo secures Tess a small apartment, the first home she has ever had. The public exposure of Jordan Darling's disguise leads to his suicide. With Lucile in hiding, Tess manages the shop and discovers the centerpiece wedding gown has been slashed by a saboteur. She repairs it, altering the design. When Lucile returns, she berates Tess for changing her work and relegates her to menial tasks.

In Washington, Jim testifies that Lucile refused to let anyone row back, that Cosmo's payment to the crewmen was a bribe, and that people trying to climb aboard may have been pushed away. Another sailor contradicts Jim, but a second stumbles over coached testimony, undermining the denial.

Jack Bremerton reappears, having survived the sinking. He courts Tess, offering comfort and possibility. When Jim returns to New York, he shows Tess his new woodworking shop and proposes building a life together. Tess, torn, tells him there is someone else. Jim walks away. Jack proposes marriage, promising Tess a design career, wealth, and freedom. Tess asks for time.

Pinky discovers that someone has reactivated an old, dismissed indictment against Jim from the coal-strike demonstrations, ensuring his arrest if he returns to England for the British inquiry. Tess confronts Lucile at the design shop. Lucile denies knowledge. Tess quits and walks out.

Lucile testifies before the Senate, claiming she heard no cries from the water and that Jim is a liar. Senator Smith confronts her with her own published interview, which contradicts her testimony. Jean Darling takes the stand voluntarily, testifying that Jim was the one brave person in the boat and that she saw someone raise an oar to strike a man clinging to the lifeboat, which Jim wrestled away.

Elinor reveals to Tess that Cosmo, not Lucile, orchestrated the plot against Jim, though Lucile preferred not to know the details. Cosmo is leaving Lucile, and over half her show reservations have been canceled. Elinor persuades Tess to appear at Lucile's spring fashion show one last time. At the show, Tess speaks about designing clothes for modern women who need to move freely, and her gown receives genuine applause. Afterward, Lucile confesses that in the lifeboat, someone grabbed her leg in the dark and she pushed them away, hearing a splash. She reveals she lost a daughter at birth who would have been Tess's age, admitting her attachment to Tess has been partly maternal. She asks Tess to stay. Tess gently refuses. Lucile gives her the moonstone earrings as a parting gift.

Jack's secretary, Mr. Wheaton, inadvertently reveals that Jack used his influence to quash the indictment against Jim, an act of generosity performed anonymously. Deeply grateful, Tess nevertheless tells Jack she cannot marry him. She must first become wholly herself before binding her life to someone else's.

Tess receives a letter from her mother urging her not to come home and not to settle for safety. The next morning, she walks to Union Square and sees Jim entering his woodworking shop. She waves; he waves back for a long, sweet moment. She continues to a massive suffragist parade in Washington Square, where she reunites with Pinky and Mrs. Brown amid 20,000 marchers. Pinky lifts her onto the parade's symbolic white horse. From the saddle, Tess surveys her new country. Jim appears below. She reaches toward him, palms up, and says yes.