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‘Sew Torn’ Review: A Stitch in Time Saves None in This Loopy Crime Comedy

Freddy Macdonald's eccentric, cult-chasing debut 'Sew Torn' sees a butter-wouldn't-melt seamstress snared up with gangsters over multiple timelines.

Cue a splintering of the narrative, as the unplanned drive sees Barbara stumble upon an as-yet-unreported accident and crime scene on a quiet bend: two motorcyclists critically injured in the middle of the road, a torn-open bounty of cocaine streaking the asphalt, and a briefcase full of cash lying beyond either biker’s grasp. “Sew Torn” proceeds to methodically relate the fallout of each option: Outcomes vary, though each brings her into contact with psychotic gangster Hudson (John Lynch) and plain-speaking elderly sheriff Ms. Engel (K Callan), and places her in some manner of jam from which only her expert needlework can free her. It’s these deliriously contrived setpieces that prove both the film’s greatest absurdity and its raison d’être, as Barbara works spools of thread into elaborate pulleys, restraints and cat’s-cradle traps — at one point darting through a tangled maze of cotton in a dizzily choreographed combat dance, set to the vintage Betty Hutton musical number “The Sewing Machine.”

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