Blow Dry
Netflix Recommendations has a habit of serving me up odd little movies that I’ve never heard of starring actors I really like. Sometimes they’re older movies, other times they were simply overlooked for one reason or another. In the case of Blow Dry, we have a movie filled with wonderful British actors that I suspect got no recognition whatsoever here in the states. It’s definitely a British production made for a British audience. Though I’m most certainly not a Brit, it’s one of the better recommendations I’ve received. Not a blockbuster – or even really a sleeper – just a pleasant movie with lots of acting talent on display.
Blow Dry has four major characters. Phil (Alan Rickman) and his son Brian (Josh Hartnet) own and run a barber shop in their small English town and Shelly (Natasha Richardson) and Sandra (Rachel Griffiths) run their own salon nearby. The rub is that Shelly used to style with and be married to Phil, until the day she ran off with hair model Sandra on the eve of a major hairdressing competition. Oops. The divorced couple hasn’t spoken in ten years and none have entered the competition ring. Now the British Hairstyling Championships are coming to their own town and it’s time to see if the group will put aside their differences for a chance at a long lost bit of hair snipping glory.
Honestly, I didn’t know there was such a thing as competitive hairdressing and for all I know it was completely made up for the movie. As a premise it’s rather charming, incorporating some of the goofiness of a Christopher Guest vehicle (like Best in Show) with an English reserve and gentleness that tone down the proceedings to allow for some level of drama amidst the bizarre world of big, elaborate hair and its inherently eccentric practitioners. It’s funny, but it isn’t slapstick. It’s poignant, but not maudlin. It’s a rather sweet combination of the two with no big huge laughs but also no overwhelming pathos.
Rickman and Richardson were undoubtedly the two biggest names involved when the movie debuted in 2001, though Griffiths and Hartnet, along with Bill Nighy and Rachael Leigh Cook have certainly seen their stars rise in the meantime. In this case, I was looking toward Rickman, whom I adore, to provide the majority of my entertainment. And he does a fine job as the bitter barber, but his is not a flashy role. Phil is an understated guy and Rickman doesn’t ruin his reserve with any antics of his own. We feel for Phil as he was most certainly the most wounded party in the events of years past. His attitude is snippy (pun fully intended) and snarky and slyly fun, particularly when old rivalries within the hairstyling communities re-emerge.
The more interesting role belongs to Richardson, who carries the weight of the drama. She’s a lovable character, not proud of her past and paying for it dearly in her present. Other concerns also plague her and it is she who most wants to come together with her ex-husband, grown son and current partner to form some sort of detente. Richardson plays the role with a nice level of dignity, completely fitting the character. Hartnet is an actor of whom I have never been particularly fond and nothing changes here. Even when cast as a hairstylist, he sports that ridiculous bowl haircut that he seems to be unwilling to part with despite it being completely dreadful. His English accent is good, however, and he handles the role adequately though without any sort of flair. Rachael Leigh Cook as his love interest has little to do and does even less with it, but does provide for a few moments of levity. The real scene stealer, as has become his MO, is Bill Nighy as the star participant in the competition. He and Phil go back many years and his persona is over-the-top flamboyant, complete with glittery eye make-up and an elaborate, self congratulatory stage presence. Rosemary Harris also has a small but important role that she plays with lovely, soft strength that makes her character shine with the wisdom of years and the beauty of experience.
The best visuals in Blow Dry are definitely the hairstyles and costumes of the competition. Ludicrous and fascinating – some ethereally beautiful and others just plain laughably weird – they form both the background and the artistic flair that make the film move. The pace otherwise is leisurely at best, but when the stylists are working there is an energy to the proceedings that helps bolster the sometimes flagging main story.
And the main story does flag. It gets slow in places and is rather drab in others – too much talk and too little show. The accents are heavy and surely mean more to those familiar with the various regions of the UK – for me it just makes it harder to understand the conversation. The very conversation that takes up quite a bit more time than it should and slows everything down. The worst part of all this exposition is that we really learn very little from it. The substance of the movie is quite slight – they could have done more with the absurdities of the competition and less with the repetitive family dynamics and kept the pace moving more evenly.
In the end, Blow Dry is not a great movie, but it is perfectly acceptable light movie watching. Sort of the cinematic equivalent of a beach novel. There are a lot of wonderful actors here and all acquit themselves well, but the story has a hard time filling the runtime and bogs down on occasion. It’s definitely fun to watch the hairstyling competition antics and fans of any of the actors will enjoy their performances, but don’t expect to have the film as a whole knock your socks off. A solid three stars with a recommendation for fans of the actors. Brits who are more accustomed to both the accents as well as the reserved comedy and drama conventions of British film may also be interested.
