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starring: Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, Rachel Griffiths, Rachael Leigh Cook, Josh Hartnettdirected by: Paddy Breathnach
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0786936145717
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Label: Walt Disney Video
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Walt Disney Video
Release Date: August 14, 2001
Running Time: 91 minutes
Sales Rank: 38586
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2001
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Despite a gifted Anglo-American cast, Blow Dry strikes an uneasy balance between sentiment and camp. It aims for the same sort of high-wire act that Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert pulled off so effortlessly, but melodrama wins the day. The comic moments are suitably over-the-top (as expected in a film about dueling hairdressers), but rarely as amusing as intended. The relationships between barbershop owner Phil (Alan Rickman), ex-wife Shelley (Natasha Richardson), and Sandra (Rachel Griffiths), 'the other woman,' could be more fully developed but are affecting nonetheless.
The setting is West Yorkshire. The event that brings them together is the British National Hairdressing Championships. Phil initially resists the urge to compete as it reminds him of the success he and Shelley once enjoyed, but his son Brian (Pearl Harbor's Josh Hartnett) convinces him to give it a go.
Hartnett and Rachael Leigh Cook (She's All That), as the daughter of Phil's old nemesis, seem like peculiar casting choices for a British film, but Hartnett's accent is passable (Cook plays an American) and they don't embarrass themselves as much as supermodel Heidi Klum, who plays a tacky, two-timing hair model. The screenplay is by Simon Beaufoy of Full Monty fame. Although not up to that standard--and certainly no match for Shampoo (the greatest hairdressing movie of all time)--Blow Dry is still a good showcase for the talents of its three leads. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Blow Dry
One of the funniest movies, we watch it over and over. I am a cosmetologist and it cracks me up. Definitly a keeper.
Rating: - Aaah, Alan Rickman
What a great movie. What a cast. They all worked so well together. Of course Alan Rickman can do no wrong in my mind. Buy it. You'll love it.
Rating: - A Yorkshire Pudding treat!
I love this movie! It's got great actors - Alan Rickman, Natasha ichardson, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Nighy and Warren Clarke. They all use that lovely Yorkshire accent and lots of "summats", "nobbuts" and "nowts" - even Josh Hartnett's accent sounds authentic to this Anglophile. The movie has a naive sweetness to it that never gets old. There are a lot of descriptions of the plot here, so I won't go into it, but I laugh out loud everytime I watch it and finally bought, here on Amazon, because it's ... Read More
Rating: - A Keeper Movie
This movie does what all movies should do. You are transported to another place by a sense of reality created by the believable characters, the sense of place, the intriguing situations and the drama. Now every so often I pop the DVD in and go back there. I think I like the transformation of the mayor best, from ordinary man to Elvis. It is little touches like this that make this movie one that merits rewatching. Other reviewers have touched on the salient points of the acting and said it better.
Rating:  - hardly noteworthy
A tremendously silly movie that's only remotely watchable because of Alan Rickman's tremendous talent to deliver any lie with dignity and intrigue. Unless you are a huge Rickman fan (which, of course, I am), you may skip this one without any guilt.
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