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Bad Hair

Play trailer Poster for Bad Hair 2013 1h 33m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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95% Tomatometer 40 Reviews 69% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
A Venezuelan boy's (Samuel Lange Zambrano) desire to straighten his curly hair leads to friction between himself and his desperate single mother (Samantha Castillo).

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Bad Hair

Bad Hair

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Critics Consensus

Immersive and powerfully acted, Bad Hair offers an unflinching yet gently endearing depiction of poverty's impact on youthful self-actualization.

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Critics Reviews

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Shadow and Act Staff Shadow and Act Buoyed by instinctive performances (especially the powerful Samantha Castillo as Junior’s mother Marta) and an unnerving score, "Bad Hair" may just be this year’s foreign sleeper hit. Sep 15, 2022 Full Review Tom Long Detroit News There's a sense of being trapped that permeates "Bad Hair" - trapped in your own flesh, trapped in circumstances, trapped in the family you're born into. Rated: B+ Feb 27, 2015 Full Review Tara Brady Irish Times Rondn has plenty of important and harsh things to say about social constructs, hypocrisy and maternal tough love. Rated: 3/5 Feb 13, 2015 Full Review David Walsh World Socialist Web Site Some of the film's strongest images are of the massive tenements and the signs of life on the different balconies. Feb 12, 2021 Full Review Brigid Presecky FF2 Media Mariana Rondón...uses her knowledge and background from Barquisimeto, Venezuela to her advantage, beautifully capturing the setting and making the audience feel as if they are there, experiencing Latin America along with their family. Aug 14, 2019 Full Review Patrick Gamble CineVue An imperfect yet endearing portrait of the complex sentiment that met the end of Chávez's rule in Venezuela, this affectionately articulated adolescent drama manages to take a few caustic swipes at the society that surrounds it. Rated: 3/5 Apr 4, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member Impeccable screenplay, Bad hair is just a metaphor of a unawanted and poorly understood personality trait. And how a backward society addresses these issues from a very dificult and challenging social framework. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Audience Member Great potential, but the story goes nowhere. It leaves the viewer with a sense of disappointment. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Set in Venezuela during the period when the president, Hugo Chavez, was ill and dying with cancer, this fine film explores issues of identity - national, racial, sexual, familial. "Bad hair" is what you have if you have some African roots; the desire to wipe those roots out by hair straightening is virtually a national obsession, especially for Venezuelan women. And there's the rub - it is a 9 year old boy, Junior, who finds himself determined to defeat the curls that evidence the long-gone liaison that his mother, Marta, had with a man of black origins. Marta worries that the apparently feminine interest in his appearance is a sign of incipient homosexuality - and it may well be. The film tracks the battle of wills between mother and son, and in the process sheds light on the racism and grinding, no-way-out poverty of the masses who live in Caracas' high rise housing estates. The photography is well done, and there is not so much of the heavy symbolism beloved of Latin-American cinema, but it is a hard watch. The second of two sex scenes particularly is particularly uncomfortable, as Marta tries to "redirect" her son's burgeoning sexuality by effectively forcing him to see her with her boss - an encounter which is in itself unemotional, economic, abusive/manipulative and crude. The love she showers on her baby, while in a state of war with her older child, and her own fragile, hunted temper and mood swings are brutally and depressingly portrayed. The awful thing is that it is probably realistic; you feel you are watching real people. Samuel Lange as Junior in particular is absolutely stunning. But for all of this, there are many lighter moments. The film is not all misery. And, even where Marta seems to have won some battles, you are left wondering how, not if, Junior is going to win the war. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member "Pelo Malo" is an intelligent portrait based on a simple context that becomes something amazing: a single unemployed mother and a gay child whose nature is smoothed with his hair, which considers incorrect; obtaining a crude portrait of a prejudiced society. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member A pretty depressing watch if I'm honest. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Pelo Malo es de esa películas sencillas con grandes actuaciones pero que no terminan de convencer al publico, su lento desarrollo y su final son sus puntos mas débiles. Pese a esto es una historia diferente a lo que ya habíamos visto antes y se agradece en gran forma. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Bad Hair

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Movie Info

Synopsis A Venezuelan boy's (Samuel Lange Zambrano) desire to straighten his curly hair leads to friction between himself and his desperate single mother (Samantha Castillo).
Director
Mariana Rondón
Producer
Gunter Hanfgarn, Marite Ugas
Screenwriter
Mariana Rondón
Production Co
Artefactos S.F
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Spanish
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 25, 2017
Runtime
1h 33m
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