From The Past

I realize the late Natasha Richardson had a distinguished movie career.  But I have to admit, the movie I like her best in is Blow Dry, an affable bit of trash from 2000 about a haircutting competition in rural England.  She's the one real serious note in the movie, a working-class lesbian stylist with terminal cancer, and A.O. Scott was correct when, in his review of the movie, he noted that concept was a bit too much freight for the movie to bear.  Today, it's mostly enjoyable as a nostalgic trifle, an artifact from a time before Josh Hartnett was more than a grubby and inexplicable Lothario, a time when Rachel Leigh Cook seemed like she might be on her way to a charming and reasonably durable career (she's 30 now.  30.  Good Lord I'm old.), a time before Heidi Klum was America's affable German style robot, as a stop on Alan Rickman and Bill Nighy's mutual rises to late middle-aged greatness.  Despite the fact that her part is the lead weight on the otherwise goofy movie, Richardson is lovely and sad.  It's a pity she's gone.