I
generally have a difficult time with narrative juxtapositions
like the one offered by the British comedy "Blow Dry," a movie
that wants to make us laugh with its biting take on a hairdressing
competition while hoping to gain our sympathy by having one
of the characters face an incurable disease. Rarely do you
see a scene involving a heartbroken, cancer-stricken mother
explaining to her family she only has a few months to live
followed moments later by a scene where a model has her pubic
hair cut to form the shape of a heart. The filmmakers were
certainly anticipating a wide target audience.
The
story takes place in a small England town where the announcement
that it will be the home of this years most prestigious
hairdressing competition is met with considerable apathy,
except from the town's high-spirited mayor (Hugh Bonneville).
Eager to have some of its own citizens as participants,
the mayor asks a former stylist named Shelley (Natasha
Richardson) is she'd be interested. But Shelley has too
many of her own problems to worry about, most notably
the frightening news that the chemotherapy isn't working.
Also, she doesn't believe she would stand a chance without
the assistance of her estranged husband, Phil (Alan Rickman),
a master stylist who has relinquished the glamour of competition
for a much quieter existence, running a small barber shop
called "A Cut Above" with their son, Brian (Josh Hartnett).
They are divorced, you see, because during their last
competition, Shelley suddenly fell in love with a spirited
model named Sandra (Rachel Griffiths) and subsequently
ran away with her. Consumed with the pain of being humiliated,
Phil now mopes around his shop, unwilling to acknowledge
her existence. He eventually changes his mind upon realization
that his number one hairstyling nemesis (Bill Nighy) is
cheating. The torn apart family must find a way to bind
together so they may win the competition as well as bring
peace back into their respective lives.
This
is the kind of movie that seems to echo damage control.
The melodramatic subplot isn't developed enough to have
any kind of impact, which leads me to believe that screenwriter
Simon Beaufoy didn't think the comic material could hold
up on its own. I tend to agree. The humorous elements
never seem to achieve the level of pungency required for
this kind of film. However, the solution shouldn't have
been the utilization of manipulative tear-jerking subplots,
but rather more rewrites or a different story altogether.
To sharply poke fun at something and to gain sympathy
play to the most diametrical ends of the human condition.
You can't laugh at something and sympathize with it at
the same moment.
The
cast does their best in playing up both elements, yet
even the actors seem a bit confused regarding what type
of film this is. As the estranged husband and wife, Alan
Rickman and Natasha Richardson seem to lean more toward
the dramatic aspect, brooding over their respective situations
more than anything else. Bill Nighy, as the pompous hairstyling
nemesis and Hugh Bonneville, as the plucky mayor lean
more toward comedy, playing up each one's goofy obsession
with the competition itself. The bright, young up-and-comers
Josh Hartnett and Rachael Lee Cook aren't given enough
to do. The wonderful but too often underappreciated Rachel
Griffiths emerges the strongest, bringing together both
the comic and dramatic elements into a sweet performance,
even though the script fails her.
My
overall negative reaction to the movie is based upon the
assumption that it was supposed to be a comedy above anything
else. Could an argument be made that the film was intended
more as a drama with a comic undertone? Absolutely. That's
my point. Like the pompous participants in the competition,
the movie proudly and colorfully perches itself atop its
premise, but what it really needed to do was pick a side
and come down off the fence.
