SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Dreadfully Boring

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The British hairdressing championships are coming to Keighley and it just happens to be the town where Phil (Alan Rickman) lives. He used to be the champion until he wife Shelley (Natasha Richardson) left him for Sandra (Rachel Griffiths). Oh, My! Now, he is just a barber (gasp!) and wants nothing to do with Shelly or the championships. Problem is, there is no one else in town that can represent it.A family reunites and we get to see some of the finest British actors.I just hope my hairdresser doesn't see this and get weird ideas. I don't want to come out with green spikes!

This movie constitutes little more than Simon Beaufoy attempting to continue his run of luck after 'The Full Monty' by presenting another 'down-to-earth' ungainly comedy/drama set somewhere in the impossibly bleak north of England, evidently a place where nobody has any hope or individuality. The film is uniformly and off-puttingly low-lit throughout, presumably a directorial decision but possibly the failure of sufficient electricity or sunlight to reach a positively medieval Keighley.Generally speaking, the decision to cast Josh Hartnett was so ill-advised that watching his performance in this film, and hearing his lamentable Dick-Van-Dyke-style attempts to mimic a "Northern" accent, is almost enough to cast a shadow over his other work (which has generally been of a high standard).Alan Rickman has no more excuse for his mocked-up accent which is ridiculously exaggerated and spoken with a clichéd hairdresser lisp, the combined effect of which will leave anyone from West Yorkshire either laughing out loud for the full running time or feeling somewhat insulted that this debacle was ever put onto film.Differing opinions over the casting aside, it is unlikely that many will find this movie very funny. This seems absolutely reprehensible in a would-be comedy. Love or hate Beaufoy, 'The Full Monty' was a genuinely funny film with a good selection of big-laughs. However, Blow Dry's humour, where it exists, is facile and normally pokes fun at the supposed oddities of working-class culture. Opportunities for humour are overshadowed by the frequent lurches into confrontational and embittered 'realistic' scenes which play out like poorly scripted 'Eastenders' exchanges.The half-baked hair Dressing theme is actually more-or-less incidental to the contorted but occasionally well-worked plot of former lovers, professional rivalry and long-lost childhood friends, and is nothing like as interesting as the strip-club milieu of The Full Monty. It could, one suspects, easily have been exchanged for countless others without rupturing the proceedings too much. The actual 'competition' scenes are a chore to sit through, consisting of the usual hastily-assembled montage sequences focusing on only one or two competitors. Rickman's credentials as a hairdresser seem less convincing than his accent, if that is possible.Amidst the usual cohort of British actors is Rachel Leigh Cook, who looks quite appropriately lost in the movie, probably wondering, like most of the audience, how Hartnett and she became embroiled in all of this. The only scene of any significant originality in the movie, in fact, is that in which Cook chooses to cut off all of her hair to escape from the whole competition circuit - again quite uncannily mirroring audience psychology.In retrospect, it can be seen that the late 90s and early 00s saw a glut of these 'provincial' comedies that were set in deliberate opposition to the London of Richard Curtis' 'Four Weddings' universe. This had a polarising effect so that mainstream British films, and especially comedies, were either set in working-class locations akin to Royston Vasey or else in an unreal city of Whitehall and Anglo-American relationships. Some such productions, like 'The Full Monty' or 'Brassed Off', were good films, others, like this one or something like 'The One and Only' (which was little more than a promotional film for the North East) were terrible. British comedies have become more sophisticated in recent years, and are no longer satisfied with such stereotypes.

Like the Full Monty, this is a story where real human tragedy is inevitable. And we know, from the very start.Yet living triumphs over dying. Not content to make her exit quietly, Natasha Richardson's character drives those around her into one great creative effort, in which each gives of their very best.Wonderful, wonderful moments abound in this movie, but the unforgettable moment for me is Natasha Richardson's acting when she sees the transformation of her lover at the hands of her ex-husband. She is absolutely overwhelmed by what she sees, and so, indeed, is the viewer.There is another magic scene in which artist and model, drawn together by their love for the same woman, suddenly rediscover their old intimacy.

Despite a lot of Big Hair, this is not a big movie. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable romp, with some affecting performances. There is nothing revelatory or even unpredictable about the story, but it works nicely and certainly entertains. The film does have a few rich moments, but seems mostly a vehicle for a group of talented actors (and it is a highly pedigreed bunch here) to take decent material and put out a fun and sometimes very moving film.While it may drag a little in the center, don't give up watching for the finale and Rachel Griffiths "total look" finish that is about as outrageous and breathtaking a "total look" as one can possibly imagine. The normally brilliant Alan Rickman here sometimes feels just a little bit on autopilot, American Josh Hartnett is vastly underused, but surprisingly effective in an important role and Natasha Richardson, as ever, positively glows on the screen and raises the emotional and dramatic stakes to a level that makes the whole affair worthwhile.Not great? Perhaps, but an immensely enjoyable little movie.