Hair brained

Good Hair
12A, Key Cities

Get Him to the Greek
15, Nationwide

When Chris Rock’s four-year-old daughter Lola came up to him crying and asked, ‘Daddy, why don’t I have good hair?’, he did not do what I would have done, which would have been to send her to bed without supper. Honestly, don’t today’s parents have enough to do without answering awkward questions? (For more child-neglecting tips, please see my Big Book of Child-Neglecting Tips, which is the definitive work of its kind.) Instead, Mr Rock, the American black comedian, lets us all down by thinking seriously about Lola’s question, and making this documentary as a kind of reply and, although it pains me to say it, it is a charming film: sprightly, droll, inquisitive and warmly sardonic. This may even be the best film about any type of hair I have seen in a long while and also the most informative. Did you know, for example, that having a ‘relaxer’ applied feels as if your scalp is being ‘stung by a thousand bees’? You did not, I fancy, but that is OK. I know how preoccupying and distracting neglecting your children and avoiding their awkward questions can be. Some days, I don’t do anything else.

Mr Rock is one proud, if heartbroken, daddy — ‘no matter how many times I tell my daughters how beautiful they are, it is never enough’ — and also a lovely, free-wheeling guide through African–American, Afro-hating hair culture. He travels widely in the US and beyond, visiting barbershops and beauty salons, the spectacular Bonner Bros International Hair Show in Atlanta — totally, insanely mad — while interviewing celebrities of the kind you and I have never heard of, not that it matters, and investigating braiding, relaxers and weaves.