HERE'S A film you didn't think you wanted to see. Even an African- American woman might balk at the notion of a documentary examining attitudes to hair – straightening, extensions, dyeing – within her own community. The rest of us could be forgiven for taking the nearest vehicle to any place where Good Hairwas not playing.
Hats off, then, to Chris Rock for devising such an entertaining, provocative picture. Beginning with a eulogy to his two young daughters, the comic, under the restrained direction of Jeff Stilson, goes on to wonder why, in a decade’s time, they might join their friends in spending fortunes on products and processes designed to strip their locks of all African traces.
Hugely expensive hair extensions, originally attached to the heads of Indian woman, are woven into the sisters’ strained roots. Dangerously noxious chemicals (known euphemistically as “relaxants”) deprive the hair of its energy as they cause the scalp to burn. Whatever happened to the proud, defiantly maintained Afro?
Wisely, Rock does not seek to answer such questions explicitly. Taking his cue from Michael Moore (but, for the most part, eschewing Moore’s enthusiasm for stunts), he listens wide-eyed as women describe their tortures and hair-care suppliers talk us through the dizzying economics.
Interviewees such as Maya Angelou (surprisingly playful) and Al Sharpton (surprisingly sane) contribute to a huge collective shrug of the shoulders at the madness of it all.
Humane, funny and insightful, Good Hairis as diverting as a documentary can get when addressing a subject about which you give neither a hoot nor a fig.
Good film, Chris.
