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Blow Dry

Blow Dry

Comedy · Drama · 2001

The annual British Hairdressing Championship comes to Keighley, a town where Phil and son Brian run a barbershop and Phil's ex-wife Shelly and her lover Sandra run a beauty salon.

Movie details

Blow Dry

“An outrageous new comedy for anyone who's ever had hair.”

2001 Comedy · Drama 1h 31m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.2 / 10

9.4K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

19 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

38 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

5.9 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

The annual British Hairdressing Championship comes to Keighley, a town where Phil and son Brian run a barbershop and Phil's ex-wife Shelly and her lover Sandra run a beauty salon.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Blow Dry?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Paddy Breathnach

Written by

Simon Beaufoy

Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman

Phil Allen

Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson

Shelley Allen

Rachel Griffiths

Rachel Griffiths

Sandra

Rachael Leigh Cook

Rachael Leigh Cook

Christina Robertson

Josh Hartnett

Josh Hartnett

Brian Allen

Bill Nighy

Bill Nighy

Ray Robertson

Warren Clarke

Warren Clarke

Tony

Court is in session

Put Blow Dry on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.