Good Hair

Narrator and on-camera host Chris Rock takes a chatty, discursive tour of the big business surrounding hair styling for African-American women, jumping from Atlanta (home of Dudley’s hair care and the Bronner Bros. International Hair Show) to India (supplier of human hair for weaves and extensions) and many points in between. Director Jeff Stilson and his co-writers (Rock, Lance Crouther, Paul Marchand and Chuck Sklar) stretch some facts—for example, sodium hydroxide (lye) is no longer as widely used for hair relaxers as they lead us to believe—but their subject is interesting, their treatment of it entertaining, and the movie has thoughtful things to say about what people will do to look good and to feel good about themselves. Rock shows an unsuspected talent for easygoing yet revealing interviews.