Beauty Shop Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)March 31st, 2005
BEAUTY SHOP
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
MGM
Grade: C-
Directed by: Bille Woodruff
Written by: Kate Lanier, story by Elizabeth Hunter
Cast: Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Alfre Woodard, Mena Suvari, Kevin Bacon, Djimon Hounsou
Screened at: AMC, NYC, 3/24/05
What's ironic about "Honey" director Bille Woodruff's new film, "Beauty Shop," is that a story presumably about female empowerment treats virtually all of the women therein as clownish stereotypes. The only femme treated as a normal, respectable, even mature person is Gina Norris, the owner of the title shop, played by the inimitable Queen Latifah. This is not a sequel to the two "Barber Shop" entries into the film sweepstakes but a look at economic, even social, liberation from the women's point of view.
Plot machinations are set into motion under Woodruff's weak directorial hand by Gina Norris, who had moved from Chicago to Atlanta to allow her daughter, Vanessa (Paige Hurd), to attend a prestigious music school. To earn their keep, Gina works for the flamboyant faux-Austrian Jorge Christophe (Kevin Bacon)–who, we learn later, is actually a Nebraskan named George Christy. Dissed once too often by the boss, Gina quits, gets a loan to open her own shop some blocks away, and is at first discouraged by the scarcity of funding needed to fix the electricity and to pay the humongous fines levied against her by a corrupt state inspector.
Production notes tell us that beauty shops are particularly important in the African-American culture, places to relax, gossip, just let it all hang out. The gossip here is not about foreign policy but largely about men, and more specifically about booty. Even in that regard, the women have nothing new or useful to tell us–not their fault: blame Kate Lanier and Norman Vance Jr.'s lazy script. The employees of the shop are a diverse group, including the one white person, Lynn (Alicia Silverstone), who at first believes she doesn't fit in–particularly since two of the black beauticians quit the shop because they refuse to work in an "integrated" site. The others include Alfre Woodard, who cites the poetry of Maya Angelou, and Gina's sexy sister-in-law, Keshia Knight Pulliam, late of the Cosby show.
Among the cliches: 1) When one employee runs from the shop to hug her man, particularly excited by the latest jewelry he places around her neck, she learns that there is no free lunch. When she tries to get back to work, her guy grabs her forcefully to get her attention. 2) The most important physical attribute a woman can have is a big booty. Thus it is that Terri Green (Andie MacDowell), who joins those customers who had fled from Jorge's shop, regularly down the collards that are offered by an in-shop concession, greens that are proudly loaded with fat. Terri shakes her booty to the earth-shaking hysteria of the staff. 3) Women who get breast augmentation surgery are not to be trusted, as the newly bosomed Joanne (Mena Suvari) learns. 4) The best men are those who act chaste–like upstairs neighbor Joe (Djimon Hounsou), who plays a mean jazz piano.
Among the better gags: when offered cappuccino, one of the employees quips, "I don't drink anything I can't spell."
"Beauty Shop," then, is a bunch of black chicks sitting around talking. The one thing that can be said in its favor is that it does not evoke the cliche of movie producers, scripters and directors, "The story of a woman who experiences an epiphany which changes her life forever."
Rated PG-13. 105 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
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