Blow Dry
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Movie Reviews of Blow Dry
Movie Review: Formulaic but pleasing
Summary: 3 Stars
Heartwarming, formulaic little tale set in northern England about a divided family of hairdressers who reunite when the biggest hairdressing competition on the continent is being held in their small hamlet. Natasha Richardson is excellent as the beautiful woman who once modeled and was married to Alan Rickman, but ten years prior left him for Rachel Griffiths. Now Rickman and his son Joshua Hartnett run their little barber shop without participating in the more festive aspects of their profession. Everything that is supposed to happen happens without many surprises, but along the way there are some good laughs and genuine moments. This one is worthwhile because of its cast.Movie Review: Blow Dry Blew Me Away
Summary: 3 Stars
Blow Dry had a unique cast Josh Harbin and Rachael Leigh had great on screen chemistry. This is a movie that is about the competive world of hair styling competions. Two rival teams are competing for the golden scissors. This takes you though the 4 day competion. It also shows you how important family can be. Very funny movie and entertaining. I started off thinking this movie was going to be a bomb but I was very pleased that it wasn't. With a cast like this you really can't go wrong. Try Blow Dry for a new look in a movie.Movie Review: Blow dry- feat. josh hartnett
Summary: 3 Stars
Blow dry is not one of the best films you may have ever seen, but nont the less, it's pretty darn good. Josh Hartnett is very hot in it, although he doesnt quite manage to nail the British accent.Movie Review: Combs right over too many comedic opportunities.
Summary: 2 Stars
If your expecting an outrageously campy comedy ala' Priscilla, Queen of the Desert or a film like Strictly Ballroom. . . you'll be very disappointed by this one. Although it's written by the writer of The Full Monty, it's a film that misses more opportunities to be funny than it hits. The fact that a lot of that is intentional is not necessarily a good thing at all. It's also the third film of the late 2000/2001 season that's about hair dressers or wigs ( An Everlasting Piece, The Big Tease ).As the film introduces us to its characters we quickly learn than one of them is dying from cancer. This immediately tells us the film is probably not going to be one full of outrageous and John Waters' like camp comedy (Hairspray, Polyester, Pink Flamingos), but rather be more of a bittersweet, heart-warming romantic comedy of a film that has a pretty interesting gimmick --the hair dressing competition. It doesn't seem to be quite sure what it wants to be as it gives us a main character dying of a disease, a Romeo and Juliet type romance, and a low key Rocky kind of film all delivered with a package that should have been over-the-top campy but isn't.
The most famous and respected hairstylists from around the world descend upon the tiny Yorkshire village for the annual hairdressing Championships. We meet former resident Bill(Nighy), a cheating egotist who has brought his estranged daughter Christina (Cook) with him to possibly use as his colorist. Bill also learns his ex chief rival Phil (Rickman) is in town and he can hardly wait to gloat over how much more successful and famous he's become. Phil is divorced and has traded in his gold show scissors to run his modest local barber shop with his son, Brian (Hartnett) while not speaking to his ex-wife Shelley (Richardson) who's in a lesbian relationship with his former hair model Rachel (Griffiths). Shelley and Rachel run a full service salon across town. If this isn't sounding too funny to you.. you're right. It isn't. It isn't supposed to be either. But while these aren't the typical characters we've seen in domestic dramas, we've seen the circumstances for this type of drama too many times to be moved or all that interested in any of it.
Good thing we're watching charismatic performances. It is also no big surprise that these characters will eventually be involved with each other again and be competing in the hair dressing contest--exactly as you expect. It's probably not a good sign when what should be a quirky out of the ordinary comedy begins with too heavy a helping of pathos and then becomes and remains extremely predictable from start to finish. Most viewers will be way ahead of the film, and there's not real surprises being offered except perhaps that is not nearly as outrageous or campy as you might be expecting it to be. I won't tell you too much more than that about the film because there aren't all that many surprises or laughs in the film and if you are going to enjoy it all you don't need me ruining some of the film's modest surprises.
There are several recognizable faced in the film's cast and they are all quite good in their roles. Alan Rickman however is almost too low key for the majority of the film and that's another missed opportunity because he would have been more fun if his role had been written to allow him to play his part a bit more broadly.
Let's review: Blow Dry is all wet. It combs over comedic opportunities in favor of immersing itself in a run through of tangled subplots which dulls much of the potential luster and glow the film's gimmick and performances might have had. In short, it's a pleasant but very modest film that offers absolutely nothing to get the least bit excited about except as an opportunity to see an impressive cast.
The DVD looks pretty good over all visually and audio wise the main complaint is that some of the fun music cues are mixed too low. The only notable extra is a brief 7 minute behind the scene featurette which is both promotional and informative. It covers the bases in the expected manner and includes brief comments from one of the producers Sydney Pollack.
If you watch Blow Dry without expectations and don't want to think too much, it's an enjoyable film with some decent performances, several overly familiar story lines and a nice gimmick (the hair dressing competition). The film's tone is bittersweet as well as comedic and it misses several opportunities for humor making it a light, warmhearted forgettable little truffle of a film. The DVD is pretty bare bones but for those interested in the cast it might be worth a rental.
Christopher J. Jarmick is the co-author (WITH Serena F. Holder) of the criticaly praised suspense thriller THE GLASS COCOON.
Movie Review: Josh Hartnett's Accent Was the Best Part...
Summary: 2 Stars
Movies have a way of making you care what they're about. With the right atmosphere, characters and background music directors can successfully make an audience care about anything they want. If someone wanted to make a drama about a hamster, and they did it well enough, they could probably make a handful of people cry over the tests and toils of their poor little hamster. However, Paddy Breathnach's `Blow Dry' is a good example of what not to do when attempting to make an audience care about something that they normally wouldn't. The whole movie is about hair. The idea is to make people watching care which obsessive-compulsive barber wins an English hairdressing tournament. The whole thing it just weird.
`Blow Dry' (2000) stars Natasha Richardson as Shelley, a middle-aged hairdresser with a lesbian lover, a lot of really tight clothes, and incurable cancer. She hasn't spoken to her ex-husband Phil Allen (Alan Rickman) for ten years, her son, Brian (Josh Hartnett), is embarrassed to be seen with her, and to make matters worse they all live in the same, tiny village in England.
Ultimately, `Blow Dry' is about the regrouping of an exceptionally dysfunctional family. The whole competition aspect works as a catalyst that forces them to face both the past and the future.
The acting is basically decent. Richardson, Rickman, and Rachel Griffiths are all well suited for their roles and for Hartnett, this movie was the first step away from `heart throb' towards serious actor, but his efforts are overshadowed by the presence of Rachel Leigh Cook. Cook plays the American daughter of the Allen's biggest rival. Her character, Christina, crams into the plot with a horrifying lack of grace that makes it seem like someone went back and added her into all the scenes after the rest of the script was finished. The only possible excuse for Cook's blunder of an acting job is the randomness of her role.
`Blow Dry' wasn't quite there as far as I'm concerned. The storyline steps into a strange territory that leaves the audience wondering if they just watched a comedy or a drama, and feeling particularly unsatisfied with the outcome. I liked parts of it, but as a whole it did nothing for me.