Review: ‘Sew Torn’ (2025), starring Eve Connolly, Calum Worthy, K Callan, Ron Cook, Thomas Douglas, Caroline Goodall and John Lynch

May 25, 2025

by Carla Hay

Eve Connolly in “Sew Torn” (Photo courtesy of Vertigo Releasing)

“Sew Torn” (2025)

Directed by Freddy Macdonald

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in the United States, the dramatic film “Sew Torn” (based on the 2019 short film of the same name) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A seamstress, who is struggling to keep her business operating, faces three choices when she comes across two wounded men and a suitcase full of cash on a deserted road.

Culture Audience: “Sew Torn” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in quirky thrillers that present multiple outcomes for different choices made by the story’s protagonist.

Thomas Douglas, Eve Connolly and Calum Worthy in “Sew Torn” (Photo courtesy of Vertigo Releasing)

“Sew Torn” can get tedious with its overabundance of offbeat characters. However, it’s an intriguing story showing three different outcomes when a lonely seamstress decides what to do about finding cash and two wounded criminals on a deserted road. The performances rise to the challenge of maintaining viewer interest, even though the characters aren’t quite as developed as they could be.

Written and directed by Freddy Macdonald, “Sew Torn” is his feature-film directorial debut and is based on Macdonald’s 2019 short film of the same name. The feature-length “Sew Torn” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The short film “Sew Torn” had no dialogue, while the feature-length “Sew Torn” has dialogue, some of which is darkly amusing, some of which is stuff and unnatural. Each movie has different cast members.

The feature-length “Sew Torn” (which takes place in an unnamed rural U.S. town; the movie was actually filmed in Switzerland) begins with a voiceover from protagonist Barbara Duggen (played by Eve Connolly), as the camera shows dead bodies on a floor. Barbara says in a flat voice: “If I were to tell you why I did what I did, when I was broke and alone, would you pity me, or would you say my actions were justified? Perhaps you’d relate to my isolation, my need. Or perhaps you’d simply see my lack of morality.”

The movie then shows a glimpse of who Barbara is to explain the choices she could make in the story. Barbara is a loner who owns a shop called Home of the Talking Portraits, which sells unusual products: custom-made yarn portraits that have audio recordings installed. Barbara inherited the shop from her deceased single mother (played by Petra Wright), who made several portraits of herself and Barbara. As part of the business, Barbara (who is a skilled seamstress) also operates a mobile sewing service, where she drives to do sewing jobs for customers.

Barbara is feeling despondent because ever since she took over the business, it’s been failing. In fact, the beginning of the movie shows that Barbara has already put up a Going Out of Business signs on display in the shop’s front windows. She is going to one of her last house appointments before she intends to close the shop for good.

This house appointment involves some last-minute mending and sewing of a wedding dress on the wedding day of a demanding socialite name Grace Vessler (played by Caroline Goodall), who will be marrying her third husband. Barbara is nervous because she’s a little late for the appointment. Grace is rude and tells Barbara that Barbara’s mother was better at doing business.

Barbara needs to sew a button on the wedding dress. However, Grace has been so obnoxious and impatient, Barbara pretends to accidentally let the button slip down a grate, when Barbara actually flicked the button down the grate. Grace is upset and Barbara uses this “lost” button as an excuse to go back to her shop to get another button. She assures Grace that she will be back as soon as possible.

While driving on a deserted road back to her shop, Barbara sees a bizarre sight. There’s been a motorcycle accident. The two men (one in his 40s, one in his 20s) are lying face down and wounded on the road. As Barbara drives closer, she sees that the younger man has a broken handcuff on his wrist, while the older man (wearing a motorcycle helmet) is grabbing the younger man by one of his legs, as if he doesn’t want the younger man to move any farther.

The younger man seems to be attempting to crawl to the briefcase on the road. Attached to the briefcase is the chain of the other handcuff. There are two guns nearby. Both men are too wounded to reach the guns and the briefcase. Barbara soon finds out that the briefcase is full of cash.

It’s pretty obvious that this is probably some crime that went awry. It’s later revealed that it’s a botched drug deal. Barbara has three choices: (1) Commit the perfect crime. (2) Call the police. (3) Drive away and do nothing about what she saw. The rest of “Sew Torn” shows what happens when Barbara makes each of these three choices.

Committing the perfect crime is what’s shown first. In this scenario, Barbara intricately threads yarn to each gun and to her car so that when she puts her car in motion, the guns will move close to each man to reach each gun. What happens next is exactly what she was expecting: Each man shoots each other. Barbara then backs up the car and steals the briefcase full of cash. This “perfect crime” scene is the entire plot of “Sew Torn” short film, which does not show what happens to the seamstress after she drives away.

The feature-length “Sew Torn” shows what happens after the seamstress drives away and thinks she has committed the perfect crime. Without giving away too much information, it’s enough to say that Barbara encounters several other characters in the movie. The younger gunman’s name is eventually revealed as Joshua Armitage (played by Calum Worthy), and the older gunman’s name is Beck (played by Thomas Douglas), whose job was to supervise Joshua.

Other characters in the movie are Joshua’s gun-toting father Hudson Armitage (played by John Lynch), who is a wealthy crime boss; a nosy elderly neighbor named Oskar (played by Ron Cook); and the town’s eccentric police chief Ms. Engel (played by K Callan), who is also the town’s notary and works as a wedding officiator on the side. “Sew Torn” has some compelling thriller sequences, but after a while, the characters in the movie might be a little too cartoonish for some people’s tastes. The movie uses a recurring motif of segueing to different scenes by showing a sewing machine stitching words with yarn.

Connolly does a very good job as the central character, considering that Barbara remains emotionally aloof for most of the film. “Sew Torn” is stylish on a technical level, but some viewers will have a hard time connecting emotionally to the movie, which keeps its characters fairly two-dimensional. If want to see a richly detailed movie about people with memorable personalities and interesting lives, “Sew Torn” is not that movie. If you’re in the mood to watch a unique movie to see how someone tries to get out certain dangerous predicaments with sewing skills, then “Sew Torn” is worth watching.

Vertigo Releasing released “Sew Torn” in select U.S. cinemas on May 9, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on June 13, 2025.

Copyright 2017-2025 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX