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Nappily Ever After
Jan. 22nd, 2019 08:40 amI loved Haifaa al-Mansour’s debut film Wadjda, so I’ve been meaning to watch Nappily Ever After since it first appeared on Netflix in September, but what with one thing and another I didn’t manage it till this month.
It’s a well-made movie, and it’s nice to see a movie with a majority black cast - and making the heroine black gives new life to the somewhat tired storyline of “uptight career woman learns to let her hair down and finds love and probably quits her high-powered job.” The cultural and political history of black hair gives “letting her hair down” new meaning and resonance, for instance. (I really liked the way the movie was organized by different hairdos - almost like chapter breaks.)
But I’m probably never going to really love any iteration of that basic storyline, unless maybe someone did “uptight career woman finds love with someone who loves her in all her uptight glory.” Which is not so much an iteration as a totally different story.
Also, it occurs to me that that story is the Netflix film Like Father (although the love in that version is platonic). So the trail has been blazed! More versions can follow!
It’s a well-made movie, and it’s nice to see a movie with a majority black cast - and making the heroine black gives new life to the somewhat tired storyline of “uptight career woman learns to let her hair down and finds love and probably quits her high-powered job.” The cultural and political history of black hair gives “letting her hair down” new meaning and resonance, for instance. (I really liked the way the movie was organized by different hairdos - almost like chapter breaks.)
But I’m probably never going to really love any iteration of that basic storyline, unless maybe someone did “uptight career woman finds love with someone who loves her in all her uptight glory.” Which is not so much an iteration as a totally different story.
Also, it occurs to me that that story is the Netflix film Like Father (although the love in that version is platonic). So the trail has been blazed! More versions can follow!
