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NAPPILY EVER AFTER is a romantic comedy involving hair. The titles that divide the film tell the different stages of the main character life as she changes her hair – for example from straight to weave to blonde and even to bald when the female protagonist hysterically shaves her head in despair on being ditched by her man.
There are good and bad things about this Netflix original romantic comedy. The writers are quick to have hair as a niche in the story. Anything and everything that concern hair is in.
When Violet was a little girl, Violet was always hair-perfect, as dictated by her mother. Where other kids could get dirty and not comb their hair, Violet had to get her hair done by her mother and kept that way throughout the rest of the day or till mother grooms her hair again. When Violet grows up, she is still 100% concerned that she must look good with her hair. She insists that she has her hair done just right for her birthday when she expects to be proposed to by her boyfriend, Clint of two years. Violet depicts that kind of girl (black or any other race for that matter). The story therefore can connect with a large part of the audience, the target audience obviously being female between the ages of 20 and 40), who are largely concerned about getting married and bear children (unless they are too career oriented or non-breeders). The bad thing about the rom-com is that it is full of cliches.
There is one contradicting scene set at a sports bar in the middle of the film when Violet sits with her two friends and discuss beer commercials. They complain that beer commercials are so sexist as they are always geared towards men. Yet when they see the men cheer a game on the TV screen drinking beer, they claim it to be latent homosexuality. This is clearly selected minority prejudice.
The one annoying thing about this film is its insistence on making hair an all important factor into the story. Hair, here used as a metaphor for vanity is too obvious. The climatic scene ends with a song about hair.
It is midway through the film that Violet encounters group therapy. She tells the group that she shaved off her hair to be bald after her boyfriend failed to propose to her. This problem is minuscule compared to the other problems of the group who suffer worst of life’s problems like cancer. The film also puts a great deal about its subject shaving off their hair. It is quite commonplace right now with many celebrities like Grace Jones sporting the look. In fact, I would say I would see at least two ladies sporting that look at my gym, on average.
Violet comes across as a character, spoilt, not getting what she wants, then getting really annoying when doing what she can. As a result, not everyone in the audience might be rooting for this annoying character which might pose a problem for the film.
As is what would be expected, director Al-mansour steers her film towards an overdone Hollywood rom-com ending – cliched as the film already is. But what is unforgivable is the film’s preaching at the end about women of colour embracing their natural beauty. Ugh!
Festival Reviews 