Just perfect...

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

now i'm not going to say this film is terrible but its not good in the slightest. with it being rated 6.0 on this site makes me laugh. the film is basically about a hair dressing competition in england, a little dismal i know.the only thing stopping me rating it so low is the cast, even though they didn't do a good job its nice to see them all in one film. Josh Hartnett (Lucky Number Slevin, Sin City, 30 Days Of Night, Pearl Harbor and Wicker Park) is a brilliant actor but has an odd accent in this. Alan Rickman (Dogma, Die Hard and the Harry Potter films) is also a fantastic actor but doesn't really pull off being an English hair dresser. Rachael Leigh Cook (Antitrust, Josie And The Pussycats) Bill Nighy (The boat That Rocked, Underworld, Shaun Of The Dead) Warren Clarke (Clockwork Orange, I.D.) and Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under) are also in the film. so if there was any film with a cast like that you would definitely give it a second look. just too bad the film was poorly made and quite tiring to watch.i would like to say that i'd recommend this to girls as it is sort of a chick flick but i wouldn't wanna give them false hopes on seeing a good film.......... 3.6/10..........j.d Seaton

What a fantastic cast! Harry Potter fans will be immediately reminded that Alan Rickman was our Professor Severus Snape, not only by his appearance, but by his snarling speech early in the movie. But will all Potter fans also recognize David Bradley from his role as Argus Filch? 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. This is a Situation that I can relate to as my wife left me for a Lesbian Relationship six years ago and we still share life and nearly grown children in the same community. The strains and bitterness are real, and so is the occasional necessity of pulling together as a family in spite of heartbreaking disappointments. CHARACTERS with former GREAT Roles! 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. Her role in 'Nancy Drew' is not her greatest, but find her in 'She's All That' or 'Strike!' and you'll want to see more of her as I have. Rachel Griffiths is beautiful as both Model and Lesbian Partner, and this relationship is given fair play as serious love. Heidi Klum is also beautiful in her share of sub-plot.But again, so what if the basic setting of a British National Hair Styling Championship is a bit farcical with stereotypically gay Hair Dressers! Or even if some of the acting appears silly! The action is Fun and Funny, while setting stage for very real life drama. That is GREAT ENTERTAINMENT!

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.

Right off the top let me be honest-I loved the movie. I have seen it at least five times (and still enjoy it every time). It is great to see two veteran (older actors)-Rosemary Harris and Warren Clarke-give outstanding performances in small roles. I measure movies by what I call magic moments- that is those moments that reach and affect you on the most basic level, that is emotionally. 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. Add to this a wonderful ensemble cast of spectators and hairdressers and the film is complete and worth not only seeing, but buying.