Movie Review: Beauty Shop

Beauty Shop (2005) 

Directed by Billie Woodruff

Written by Kate Lanier

Starring Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, Alfre Woodard, Mena Suvari, Kevin Bacon, Djimon Hounsou 

Release Date March 30th, 2005

Published March 30th, 2005 

Ever since her breakthrough role and Oscar nomination with 2002's Chicago, Queen Latifah has struggled to find material worthy of her talent.  Chicago has led to a string of awful movies like Cookout, Taxi, and Bringing Down The House, the latter being the only hit of the bunch and arguably the worst of them. None of these awful films, however, has dimmed the Queen's star presence. She is still a welcome presence onscreen even if her movies don't do her talent injustice.

The latest example of Queen Latifah's star presence, the Barbershop spinoff Beauty Shop, is yet another bad movie where Queen Latifah outshines bad material.

In Barbershop 2 Queen Latifah introduced the character of Gina, beauty shop owner who had the guts and talent to go toe to toe with Cedric The Entertainer's cantankerous old man, Eddy. In Beauty Shop Gina has packed up her talent and attitude and headed for Atlanta where she works at an upscale salon and hopes to soon open her own shop.

Her boss is your typically effeminate diva stylist, Jorge Christophe (a nearly unrecognizable Kevin Bacon with a faux Euro-trash accent). Jorge constantly dumps his work off on Gina who earns the trust and loyalty of his clients because of her talent. However when Jorge criticizes Gina in front of the entire salon, saying that he "owns her ass", Gina quits.

With the help of family, friends and an especially easy to please bank loan officer, Gina buys a run down beauty shop in a questionable part of town. The shop comes equipped with a noisy neighbor/potential love interest (Djimon Hounsou), bad electricity and a staff of oddball stylists not used to Gina's more upscale tastes. Among her new employees are the former owner, the Maya Angelou quoting Miss Josephine (Alfre Woodard, looking uncomfortable in this rare comedic role), Chanel (Golden Brooks) the requisite attitude problem or more precisely the bitch, and Ida (Sherry Shepherd) the dim witted one.

Thankfully also coming along with Gina from Jorge's is a talented stylist named Lynn (Alicia Silverstone, stymied with a bad southern accent), the one white girl in an all black shop. Lynn naturally is at the center of much of the film's uncomfortable racial humor.  On the bright side for Gina, some of the upscale clients from Jorge's have followed her, including the sweet natured Terri (Andie McDowell) and the bitchy Joanne (Mena Suvari).

The film's plot centers on finances as the shop, as it was in the Barbershop movies, is constantly in dire financial straits. Everything is falling apart, the electricity is bad and a nasty building inspector seems to have it out for Gina. That said, though, the plot is very much secondary to the interaction of this over-the-top group of characters and is not the film's strong point.

The one thing the film has going for it is the star presence and charisma of Queen Latifah whose common sense straight man never really gels with the caricatures that surround her. That is certainly not Latifah's fault.  She seems dead on throughout, especially in her romance with Djimon Hounsou's character, Joe. Though Hounsou never seems comfortable with the comedic part of his role, he does know how to handle the quiet romantic scenes and had they been given the chance these two actors could have done something very interesting.

Unfortunately there are too many other things going on in Beauty Shop for Queen Latifah and Djimon Hounsou to really connect. Music video Director Bille Woodruff (Honey with Jessica Alba) is too caught up with his quirky characters to give Latifah the attention she deserves. Queen Latifah is radiant and funny and a director with more imagination than Mr. Woodruff might have forgotten about trying to make Barbershop 3 and focused the film on Gina and her romance with Joe.

I really cannot say enough nice things about Queen Latifah, it's a shame that the producers of Beauty Shop did not like her as much as me. If they did, they might have forgotten about cloning the Barbershop movies around her and instead allowed the story to focus more on romantic comedy and less on rehashed characters and jokes. Queen Latifah deserves better and we in the audience especially deserve better.