听 
Something, it seems, has gone astray. After all, Breathnach ("I Went Down") is a good director. Simon Beaufoy wrote "The Full Monty". And you would imagine that the parade of savvy actors must have seen something interesting in here, at least at the start. The result, unfortunately, is a soulless piece of fluff, with neither enough laughs nor drama to merit the ticket price.
The story begins as the cream of hairstyling talent descend on a tiny Yorkshire village for the Annual Hairdressing Championships. Amongst them is former resident Bill Nighy, a cocksure cheat who brings his estranged daughter Christina (Cook). He's partly there to gloat over ex-partner Phil (Rickman), a divorcee who's hung up his show scissors to concentrate on the local barber shop with his son, Brian (Hartnett), while trying to ignore ex-wife Shelley (Richardson), who's run off with old pal Rachel Griffiths.
This complicated emotional jigsaw finds itself put to the limit as the competition hots up, first love rears its head and various other tragedies are thrown into the mix.
All "Blow Dry" makes for is a big "so-what?" It's not very funny (with the exception of Warren Clarke's try-hard mayor and the odd camp hairstyling gag), while the relationship issues are so well-trodden that not even a cast of this ability can make it fresh. And how the filmmakers let Hartnett get away with such an abysmal English accent is anyone's guess.
A big missed opportunity.
Read an interview with the producer of "Blow Dry" Sydney Pollack.
