Shampoo (1975)

IMDb plot summary: On Election Day, 1968, a hairdresser and ladies' man is too busy cutting hair and dealing with his various girlfriends and his mistress, whose husband he meets and finds out is having an affair with his ex-girlfriend.

Directed by Hal Ashby. Starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and Lee Grant.

There really isn't one redeemable character in this story, I think, with just the constant cheating and objectifying, and I would assume that's on purpose, but it's hard for me to tell what this movie is actually attempting to say about relationship ethics. There's not really any thought put into any of the (many) female characters, they all just blend together into one perfectly-hairstyled jealous blob, and it makes it difficult to take the misogynistic statements made by the male characters at the end as something other than the actual writer's feelings about women. Director Hal Ashby and I don't ever see eye to eye on our comedy, either. There are a few almost slapsticky moments that I think are trying to be comedic, but most of them don't really work for me and feel out of place in the depressed aimlessness of the rest of the movie. And maybe that's the most apt description: "depressed." This movie feels exceptionally depressed about relationships and wants to make us all depressed about them too, and so we get... this.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Shampoo < Letters from Iwo Jima

Shampoo < Secondhand Lions

Shampoo > Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Shampoo > War Machine

Shampoo < The World Is Not Enough

Shampoo < Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Shampoo < Gilda

Shampoo > Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson's Hairbrush

Shampoo < Premonition

Shampoo < Brokeback Mountain

Shampoo < King Kong (1933)

Shampoo < Frankenstein (1931)

Final spot: #2639 out of 3264, or 19%.