|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many wonder whether their hair stylists can read minds: how else do they come up with such juicy gossip and such incisive advice? Xen (an irresistibly reserved Rehaan Engineer), owner of a ritzy Bombay salon in Indian director Rahul Bose’s effervescent English-language first feature, can do just that. As soon as his shears touch the hair of his clients, he can penetrate their social façade, hearing the desperate whispers of a rich society woman dumped by her husband, the growing despair of a flamboyant, struggling actor, the depravities of an expensively suited businessman. Unlike the angels in Wim Wenders’s Der Himmel über Berlin/Wings of Desire, he’s able to act on this knowledge, sometimes indirectly, other times not. But his power leaves him isolated until he meets a girl whose thoughts he can’t read — or maybe she has no thoughts at all. Bose’s colorful sets (the blue-lit salon, the carnivalesque Domino’s Pizza across the street) overcome the tale’s staginess with a bemused flair. When it succumbs to tawdry melodrama, however, Everybody’s engaging surface reveals an empty heart. (100 minutes)
BY PETER KEOUGH
|
