Blow Dry
Tags: romantic, comedy, satire

Plot synopsis:
Shelley Allen (Natasha Richardson) operates a hairdressing shop in Keighley with her domestic partner Sandra (Rachel Griffiths). Shelley has been battling cancer, a secret known only to Sandra and a few confidants. She receives a terminal prognosis from her oncologist and decides to hide the truth from Sandra. When Keighley is chosen to host the British hairdressing championship, Shelley wants to participate one last time. She asks her ex-husband Phil (Alan Rickman) and her son Brian (Josh Hartnett), who operate a barber shop, to join her and Sandra as a team to enter the competition. Phil rejects the proposition: ten years previously Shelley had been his partner in the competition, and she ran off with Sandra (their model) the night before the third event; Phil has never forgiven them. Meanwhile, defending champion Raymond Robertson (Bill Nighy) visits Phil to ensure that Phil is not competing. Brian is offput when Raymond belittles Phil's confidence and ability. When he is attracted to Raymond's beautiful daughter Christina (Rachael Leigh Cook), Brian offers to join Shelley's team.
Christina aspires to be a hair colorist, but lacks experience. Brian brings her to a funeral parlor where he works, where she can practice on one of the corpses after hours while Brian cuts its hair. Christina is startled when the corpse "groans" (expels trapped gas in the lungs) and flees into the street. Brian follows to console her and inadvertently allows the doors to lock behind them. The next morning the family of the deceased is displeased to find shocking pink spiky hair on their 95-year-old uncle. During the first round of the competition, Brian is cornered by the relatives of the deceased and is physically beaten.
Shelley reveals to Phil and Brian that she has terminal cancer. Phil reconsiders and agrees to coach but not to cut. After Raymond's team successfully cheats in the first round, Phil sabotages a second attempt in the second round, allowing the other top teams to narrow the gap to Raymond. Christina gains coloring experience using the sheep of the family that assaulted Brian. Brian however disowns her when he realizes she is helping Raymond cheat.
The night before the third round, Sandra learns that Shelley's cancer is terminal. Angry that Shelley lied to her, she quits the team. Shelley recruits one of her clients as the model for the third round and wins, moving the team into second place overall. Phil is congratulatory, but Shelley reveals that her motivation was not to win – she wanted the team effort to bond the four of them into a family before she dies. Phil agrees to participate in the final round; he also talks Sandra into rejoining the team. Christina cuts off most of her hair so that she cannot participate in her father's scheme for the final round, and she and Brian reconcile.
In the last round, Phil's novel design includes shaving Sandra's head to reveal an old scalp tattoo and applying body paint to her naked, winged body. The result snatches them the overall victory by one point. Shelley, Sandra, Phil, Brian and Christina leave the competition arm-in-arm as Keighley celebrates a hometown winner.

Review: Local boy Alan Rickman, a has been hair wizard now doing "short back and sides" for 7.50 is convinced to enter the competition by his son, his ex-wife and her girlfriend.Natasha Richardson (daughter of the incomparable Vanessa Redgrave) is brilliant as the terminally ill lesbian mother trying to use the event as a way to reunite her family.
Rachel Griffiths, whom you may remember from the hilarious Australian comedy Muriel's Wedding, is the model who left Rickman for his wife on the eve of his triumph in hairdressing, hence his present low state.
Blown Away by Blow Dry. A film about hairdressing championships could be disastrous,but a superb cast of fine British actors saved this film from Stinkville.The storyline is actually not bad,and the rivalry between Phil Allen (Alan Rickman) and Raymond Robertson (Bill Nighy) is humorous and entertaining.While this movie is amusing and light hearted it does focus on sadder issues like broken families,and terminal illness.Australian actress Rachel Griffiths gives a fine performance and perfects a British accent for her role as Sandra,who is romantically involved with Shelley (Natasha Richardson)who lives in fear that the truth about her illness will ruin their relationship.Young stars Josh Hartnett and the very adorable Rachael Leigh Cook are pleasant contributions to the film,with their brother-sister chemistry and secret adoration for one another.Heidi Klum also makes a special appearance,and sports some outrageous hairdos and costumes.Blow Dry was a film that should've,could've and would've been disappointing,but for some reason,wasn't..
When former rival hairdresser Raymond, (Bill Nighy) arrives in Phil's home town for the national hairdressing championships the scene is set for a dramatic confrontation and by the end of the competition many people's lives have altered.
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?
Alan Rickman is good, sincere and has depth, Josh Hartnett has an okay delivery ruined by his trying-too-hard faux Yorkshire accent, and Bill Nighy is Bill Nighy, you'll always get a few laughs from him, but the real stars are Rachel Griffiths and Natasha Richardson.
In fact, what I found was a quite funny movie with enough human interest thrown in to make it a worthwhile movie.The story revolves around a hair dressing family who have been broken apart when Shelly (Natasha Richardson) leaves Phil (Alan Rickman) for Sandra (Rachel Griffiths).
This movie has several of these-Rachel Leigh Cook cuts her hair in protest of her father's underhanded tactics; Rachel Griffith's total look ; the conversation between Natasha Richardson and Rhachel Griffith when Rachel finds out about the cancer.
Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, Bill Nighy, Josh Hartnett, Rachel Griffiths, and Rosemary Harris star in "Blow Dry," a 2000 film directed by Paddy Breathnach.When the small town of Keighley wins the right to have The Annual British Hairdressing Championship, comes to Keighley, it brings up a few questions for Phil (Rickman) and his son Brian (Hartnett) run a barbershop, and where Phil's ex-wife Shelly (Richardson) and her girlfriend Sandra (Griffith) have a beauty salon.
The British hairdressing championships are coming to Keighley and it just happens to be the town where Phil (Alan Rickman) lives.
She set up her own beauty salon whilst her ex-husband and their son ran a barber shop.Reluctantly they are thrown together when a national hairdressing competition is held in their home town of Keighley.The ensuing events and subplots unravel up to the competition final with each stage displaying more exotic and bizarre presentations than the last.It's a funny and watchable film with heart-wringing moments..
Even so the film is great and Josh, despite looking strained does a fairly good job.
Making an emotionally satisfying movie and climax out of a hairdressing competition is no mean challenge, but considering how such a plot seems doomed to mediocrity the film manages to be entertaining enough as light background drivel of the mildly humorous sort..
This entertaining comedy has Alan Rickman in this fun movie that has the usual number of sight gags, the fumblings, the intentional (accidents), the dramatic relational conflicts to make this a cute trip to Britain and the world of hair styling.
I was not sure what to expect but was extremely surprised.The cast was very good even though Josh Hartnett was a bit strange in choice to me.
With an all-star cast this wacky, out of sorts movie, is the type one does not usually see, but due to the eccentric colours and the lure of Josh Hartnett, I decided to make it a viewing.The movie is set in a small British town called Knightley, as we follow the life of Shelly (Richardson) as she tries to reunite her family before the cancer she has been struggling with overcomes her.
The whole movie revolves around a national hair cutting championship and Shelly, Sandra (Griffths), Phil (Rickman) and Brian (Hartnett) must all work together to with the coveted golden scissors.Fortunately the different uses of hair proved rather intruiging rather than comedic as hoped, but still held up the movie, and little snide comments from Phil (Alan Rickman), made the movie all the worth watching.
With some sad intrepid scenes, and some abnormal realities for a small British town, such as Shelly (Natasha Richardson) and Sandra (Rachel Griffths) Lesbian relationship.Unfortunately the let down seemed to come from Josh Hartnett and Rachel Leigh Cooke, who were the original reason for my watching the film.
The cast and crew must have thought that they were on to a winner, with a Yorkshire set comedy by the same writer as 'The Full Monty.' However the few gags there are just come across as ridiculous, most of the characters are way over the top, and at the end things take a turn for the surreal, but not in a good way.
The funniest and most interesting thing about this film is Josh Hartnett's attempt at a West Yorkshire accent.
Alan Rickman's films are always fun to watch, and Blow Dry is no exception.
Rachel Griffiths gives her usual terrific performance but it is Natasha Richardson who pulls out all the stops in this movie.
This was an extremely enjoyable movie that left me with a smile on my face the whole night after I saw it.Hartnett's accent and acting are surprisingly better than anything I've ever seen him in before, making him worthy in my mind of playing a character in a family played by greats like Rickman, Richardson, and Griffiths.
"Blow Dry" is by no means a great movie under classical and conventional terms, but it'll certainly lift your mood and make you chuckle a bit, so it's definitely worth 90 minutes of your precious life..
Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson and especially Rachel Griffiths were all very good.
Think of it as Rocky - only this time the underdog dons a pair of clippers in lieu of boxing gloves.Blow Dry tells the story of family of hairstylists and how their lives become entangled (no pun intended) with cheesy-pink-haired corpses, rainbow-colored sheep, and an array of bizarre but dazzling 'do's and campy fashion when the British National Hair Championships descend upon their small, unsuspecting working-class Yorkshire town of Keighley.
The film is very predictable and the actors are given very little to work with, but it's pleasant enough to watch (and enhanced by the high standard of acting from the British cast members.) It's not offensively bad, in fact it probably would've been quite good if it hadn't been made at least ten times before (in various guises.) This time it's about hairdressing.
By no means a great movie but anything teaming Alan Rickman and Rachel Griffiths will get my money.
Rachael Leigh Cook is attractive as an American, but this will do nothing for her career; Josh Hartnett completely convinces as a Brit, although I can't even guess how he ended up in this type film.
Warren Clarke as the local mayor who gets more and more into the spirit of the event and Bill Nighy as the bad guy with numerous tricks up his sleeve are exceptionally funny, and Alan Rickman (looking more and more like a relation of the British comedian Frankie Howerd as he gets older) doesn't let us down as the morose local ex-champion hairdresser who is pressured to make the inevitable comeback.
A tale about hair-dressing rivalries in a small Yorkshire town might not seem an obvious subject for a comedy, especially when one of the characters is a dying lesbian, but this is a movie with a huge amount going for it.
There are faults with the writing - it's a bit uneven in places - and Josh Hartnett as Brian seems to have a real struggle with his supposed Yorkshire accent, but the end result is something quintessentially British that reads like an episode of 'Last of the Summer Wine'.
I particularly relished Bill Nighy's 'queen of the hairdressers' dumped unceremoniously in the wilds of Yorkshire like a slightly camp Withnail; it's a performance to treasure in a film I'll enjoy watching over and over again.Don't let the reviews put you off; give this one a chance.
Our poor, downtrodden working classes are the subject again, and while there is plenty of meat left on that kind of idea, if it is done properly, writer Simon Beaufoy seems to be left only with the bones of The Full Monty to work with, despite an acclaimed cast including Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, Rachel Griffiths and Warren Clarke.
Translated to screen this time by director Paddy Breathnach, Blow Dry admittedly has enough guts about it to feature terminal illness, and alternative lifestyles within the characters of Sandra (Griffiths), who ran off with her hairstylist's wife Shelley (Richardson), who has cancer, but they seem like contrived details to wrench some emotion out of the story, and are never fully tackled.
Rising American star Josh Hartnett plays Brian, Phil's (Rickman) trainee barber son, who is the link to tie up animosity between his parents and coax them into entering the National British Hairdressing Championships which has come to Keighley for some reason.
Natasha Richardson, Josh Hartnett, and Rachael Leigh Cook were great in the film and were believeable.
Alan Rickman,Rachel Griffiths,Natasha Richardson,plus others.Surely,I thought,they must have read the script,and would only do a film if it was worth doing.
I decided to watch "Blow Dry" because of Rachael Leigh Cook, not even because of Josh Hartnett.
Robertson is scared for only one man from Keighley who could enter the competition: Phil Allen (Alan Rickman).Allen cuts hairs in a local barbershop with his son Brian (Josh Hartnett), but has been out of competitions for ten years, since the day his wife Shelley (Natasha Richardson) ran away with his model Sandra (Rachel Griffiths) in a lesbian affair that left him all alone.
From the younger, like Rachael Leigh Cook who hasn't been doing much lately but has a great career for her age and a beautiful smile to connect with her talent; and Josh Hartnett, with a well accomplished British accent and experimenting with comedy before his lead in "40 days and 40 nights".
To the elder, like the duo created by Richardson and Griffiths, which depends on a lot of accurate chemistry; and Warren Clarke's Tony, who is a revelation as he gains confidence while the days go by in the competition.But finally, those relaxed and calmed old men (to put it in a way) who have great talents and make anyone laugh, but probably will never be recognized for it.
I was quickly checking the TV program and noticed that a movie with Alan Rickman and Natasha Richardson had just started.
There must be plenty of good looking young actors from the UK who could have done the job.The film may have been half decent, but the appalling accent just put me off the movie.
Who cares if Josh Hartnett get his accent right - he gets his Part as young son of Rickman and Natasha Richardson (as Shelley) who left the marriage for a Lesbian affair.
Bill Nighy as the competitive Ray Robertson in one of his greatest of Many great roles too numerous to mention (tho I've seen nearly all of his Award Winning Performances now.) Rachael Leigh Cook is story-book perfect as daughter of Nighy, falling in love with Hartnett in the competition family.
Ended up watching this last night when i couldn't sleep, usually films like this knock me out in seconds, but this time I finished it partly through the reasonable stab at a storyline and partly for local intrigue as i'm a yorkshireman.The plot line isn't really what drew me in as really it's more to do with the character interactions which unfortunately leads me to the only problem of the film which is two of the three American actors in the film, Josh Hartnett and Rachel Leigh Cook.
His soft presentation of pain, of lost love and in the end of an enormous celebrity is the jewel in a story that is also carried by wonderful humour and crazy fun.The other pearls of intensity in `Blow Dry' are Natasha Richardson as Shelley, the ex-wife of Allen and Rachel Griffiths as Sandra, the former model of Allen, who is now living with Shelley.
And both Rachael Leigh Cook and Josh Hartnett put in very solid roles as the offspring of competing British Champion hair stylists.
I am a complete Josh Hartnett fan, but I have never seen Blow Dry..only because it didn't look that great.
The rest of the somewhat "odd lot" of fine character actors came through with typical good-indie-film great performances as well.I recall reading some flak from some folks in England, complaining about Josh Hartnet's non-Yorkshire accent.
If your expecting a laugh out loud comedy forget it, but if you want a good film with a great cast, you won't be disappointed.
I sought out Blow Dry because I love Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman and the late, great Natasha Richardson ...
I can only assume that the publicists played on Josh Hartnett and Rachael Leigh Cook for the American market, but in doing so they must have put off an awful lot of people like me - and surely Richardson at least carried plenty of weight in the US?
For one of the best examples I have ever seen of good, simple writing skilfully delivered, watch Richardson's scene with the doctor in which her character learns she is terminal; it should not be possible to be that sad and yet funny at the same time!My one complaint with this film is the casting of Josh Hartnett as Phil and Shelley's son, Brian.
The scene about halfway through in which Richardson's character reveals to Phil and Brian that she has cancer and is dying should have been a deeply moving showcase for the talents of Richardson and Rickman, but the viewer is thrown completely out of the moment by Hartnett's utterly appalling trampling of the Yorkshire accent - which, in spite of its awfulness, still seems to have been absorbing enough to prevent him from actually acting at the same time.Aside from this utterly bewildering casting choice, Blow Dry is a fantastic film - I could rave about it even longer, but your time would be better spent just watching it..
He has always been one of my favorites and I had not seen this one yet.In typical British movie comedy style they take a silly premise, a British hair-dressing competition in the small town of Keighley, and build a story around it.
Interestingly it also features two American actors the cast.Alan Rickman is Phil Allen who runs a hair-cutting shop with his son, Josh Hartnett as Brian Allen.
It deals with the tough subject of cancer, but somehow gets you laughing at the same time you want to cry.Alan Rickman plays Phil Allen, a small town hairstylist who gets pulled into the Annual British Hairdressing Competition when his rival, Ray Robertson (Billy Nighy).
Along the way, he comes to terms with his ex-wife (Natasha Richardson) who left him for her lesbian lover (Rachel Griffiths) during the last competition he was in.And if you've ever been to or competed in a hair show, you will recognize all the supporting roles as more than just caricatures.My only problem is that this is billed primarily as a comedy, and where it is funny as anything, it is a serious movie that makes you laugh occasionally.Absolutely worth watching!.
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.
His one-time rival (Alan Rickman) has led a quiet life as the local barber ever since his wife (Natasha Richardson) left him.
With a movie like this I think it would have been more enjoyable as straight comedy or straight drama.The other problem I had was the competition itself.
Imagine what she would have done with a stronger movie....Although, I didn't like Blow Dry all that much, the end was very sweet and I did care about the characters, particularly Shelly.