Sassy talk and snazzy dos at Queen Latifah's 'Beauty Shop'

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

By SEAN AXMAKER
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

The plus-size personality of Queen Latifah finds a perfect fit in Gina, the cheeky beautician introduced in "Barbershop 2." That part was little more than advance marketing for "Beauty Shop," which takes Gina and her musical prodigy daughter from Chicago to "Hot-lanta."

MOVIE REVIEW

BEAUTY SHOP

DIRECTOR: Bille Woodruff
CAST: Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Alfre Woodard
RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes
RATING: PG-13 for sexual material, language and brief drug references
WHERE: Alderwood 16, Bella Bottega 11, Cinema 17, Crossroads 8, East Valley 13, Factoria, Gateway 8, Issaquah 9, Mountlake 9, Pacific Place, Parkway Plaza 12, Woodinville 12
GRADE: B

- See the photo gallery

She brings glory to the salon of a preening Euro-phony (Kevin Bacon, who sneers his way through the film with smarmy affectation) until he takes credit for her work once too often. With her blood up and her dreams just out of reach, Gina goes from uptown splendor to downtown damage control when she buys a rundown shop in the slums.

"Looks like somebody swallowed the '70s and threw it up in here," exclaims her mother-in-law (Gina's husband is deceased but family is forever) before Gina gives it a simple but stylish makeover.

All that's left to do is unite her eccentric stylists (which include a Maya Angelou-quoting Alfre Woodard), win over the regulars, and make room for her old upper-class clients (Andie MacDowell) while doing the unthinkable: integrating the joint. And that isn't easy when Gina's best friend Lynn (Alicia Silverstone), a drawling, aw-shucks Blue Ridge country white girl, is the epitome of squeaky, nose-crinkling girlishness in the midst of funky soul-sisterhood.

The cookie-cutter plot (which has something to do with an underhanded business war waged by her former boss) is little more than a frame for the chemistry created by personalities tossed together in the cozy shop.


	Gina (Queen Latifah) is taken advantage of at an uptown salon, so she moves downtown and opens her own place.

The script is full of brassy lines, verbal shots that roused the audience with whom I saw the film to laughter and hoots of support time and again.

The dialogue would be little more than a compendium of sassy punch lines and risque remarks without the setting. But in the context of the increasingly vital community that flourishes under (and in some cases in spite of) the big-hearted, open-armed Gina, these playful lobs and dialogue duels become social currency. It's what forges a community out of the individuals, and it's what makes the crowd at this "Beauty Shop" such winning company.

Sean Axmaker is a movie reviewer and freelance film writer based in Seattle. He can be reached via e-mail at seanax@hotmail.com.