Ladies in Black

Ladies in Black is set in Sydney in 1959, where Lisa, a teenager who has just finished school, takes a summer job at a large department store while she waits for her university entrance results. On the shop floor she meets a group of women who work alongside her: Fay, who is looking for love, and Magda, a European immigrant in charge of the store's high-fashion section. Their different lives and ambitions open Lisa's eyes to a wider adult world, and over the course of the summer she begins to change.

The film is a comedy drama directed by Bruce Beresford, who wrote the screenplay with Sue Milliken; Milliken also produced it with Allanah Zitserman. It is based on Madeleine St John's novel and sits nineteenth in the twenty films Beresford has directed, following Mr. Church and preceding The Travellers. Angourie Rice plays Lisa, with Rachael Taylor as Fay, Julia Ormond as Magda, and Ryan Corr, Nicholas Hammond and Vincent Perez in supporting roles. It runs 109 minutes.

Released in October 2018, the Australian production took about 9 million dollars worldwide. Ratings place it in solid middle ground: on IMDb it holds 6.8 out of 10 from roughly 9,100 votes, and on TMDB 6.7 out of 10 from around 205 votes. Audience opinion is therefore consistent across both, with a larger IMDb sample and a smaller TMDB one agreeing closely.