Studio: Arrow Video
Director: Jill Gevargizian
Writer: Jill Gevargizian, Eric Havens, Eric Stolze
Producer: Chris Knitter, Jordon Rioux, Najarra Townsend, John Pata, Jill Gevargizian, Robert Patrick Stern, Sarah Sharp
Stars: Najarra Townsend, Brea Grant
Review Score:
Summary:
A lonely hairdresser who is secretly a serial killer becomes obsessed with inserting herself into a client’s personal life.
Review:
Lonely introvert Claire has a day job as a hairdresser. She works nights too, although those extra shifts are as a secret serial killer. When the shop doors lock and witnesses aren’t around, Claire scalps drugged clients. The troubled woman then wears these flesh “wigs” in front of a glamour mirror where she imagines leading an active life of laughter, love, and normalcy.
Claire’s latest obsession of vicariousness is Olivia. A longtime customer, Olivia is about to marry and desperately needs Claire’s styling magic to make the event perfect. Claire’s insecurities initially keep her from accepting Olivia’s offers to not only work the wedding, but join the bachelorette party and also unwind with a one-on-one girl’s night. Claire isn’t sure she can maintain a mask of self-assuredness for all of that. But wearing the hair of other women isn’t fulfilling her fantasies like it used to. Getting closer to Olivia might be the salve she needs to soothe her isolating anxiety.
As her inability to interact without awkwardness increasingly conflicts with her desire to endear herself to Olivia, Claire realizes reality may never match her imagination. After slaughtering secondary targets stops satisfying her macabre compulsions, Claire concludes if she can’t become Olivia’s friend, she’ll try to turn herself into Olivia instead.
“The Stylist” is a female-focused film. It was co-written and directed by Jill Gevargizian. It stars Najarra Townsend and genre mainstay Brea Grant. I only remember four men in the movie. Two speak single lines as extras, one is a silently leering letch credited as ‘Coffee Shop Creep,’ and the other is Olivia’s dismissive jerk fiancé Charlie. Settings feature scenes typically associated with women, certainly in cinema, such as trying on clothing and catty bathroom gossiping.
I am male and I could not connect with “The Stylist.” I only consider the first part of that comment relevant because lately, if you’re a man who doesn’t support a women-centric film, incensed haters hurl rash accusations about being a misogynist dude-bro unwilling to accept media from diverse perspectives. I assure everyone I have no such conscious bias. My reasons for not warming to “The Stylist” go beyond reductive gender typing.
I didn’t warm to Brea Grant’s “Lucky” either (review here). Except in that circumstance, I was cognizant that being male impeded me from digging into the film’s female-themed messaging. I could identify that metaphors existed. But my station as someone who has never felt the gaslit paranoia of being made unsafe through patriarchal oppression placed the movie’s meaning outside my reach. I had to surrender with “Lucky” and accept that it flew above my capacity to relate to the experience presented.
That’s not the same situation with “The Stylist.” As I tuned out to the movie’s first seven minutes, where Claire kibitzes with a droning client (whose hair is already freshly cut and styled) about her ordinary life as a working suburban wife, I wondered, is this banal salon banter intriguing to women who more commonly have conversations during haircuts? Then it occurred to me that was a sexist rationalization for the stiff staging. Excessive stretches of unfocused chitchat aren’t captivating no matter the gender. I can look at “Lucky” and visualize how someone other than me could hook into it. With “The Stylist,” it’s harder to see how anyone engages with its wandering narrative.
To rephrase something I said in the other review referenced: With “Lucky,” I deduced the issue was with me. With “The Stylist,” I believe the issue is with the movie.
“The Stylist” purports to be a portrait of a damaged person coping with psychosis. It’s about a woman who wants another life. Specifically, she wants a life someone else has. Claire suffers from OCD, emotional anxiety, dissociative depression, and a diminished sense of self-worth fostered by a broken background full of stunted social intercourse.
None of Claire’s afflictions are unique to any gender, race, religion, or income. Speaking frankly, I have suffered or currently still suffer from every condition listed in the last sentence of the preceding paragraph. Yet not once did I relate to Claire because the film’s superficial study of her is perfunctory to the point where empathy is empty.
“The Stylist’s” overlong exploration of Claire’s character consists mainly of looking in the mirror, crying over her collection of scalped wigs, or huffy and puffy hyperventilating. It’s unclear what meaningful insight these weepy breakdowns and stares of silence offer since they’re not in the context of advancing a story. They only redundantly illustrate Claire’s stress. At one point, Claire laughs maniacally while wearing a fresh scalp, scarfing pizza, and watching cartoons on the victim’s TV. It’s a common trope to juxtapose gruesomeness with childishness as a visual shock; Harley Quinn does this all the time. I still don’t see what resonant value this has as an in-depth examination of a fragile psyche’s devolution.
Another complication when trying to suss out “The Stylist” is that Jill Gevargizian is an indie industry fixture whose social circle stretches across the horror community. Alternately using the name Jill Sixx, Gevargizian has connected with countless names over the course of her career producing and filling other positions prior to this directorial debut feature. So there are plenty of people eager to offer acclaim, yet only a portion of it is earned while predisposed platitudes come from folks who prioritize friendship over objectivity.
Of the two 10/10 IMDb user reviews, one commenter called “The Stylist” a “cool movie with an amazing concept” as well as “an art house masterpiece.” That single sentence offered no elaboration on what made the movie cool or the concept amazing, much less how it qualifies as a masterpiece. The other review used adjectives such as “great, captivating, and fantastic,” but similarly didn’t qualify how those words applied.
For professional perspective, I read a positive review from a critic I respect. This person dubbed “The Stylist” a “sophisticated depiction” of a serial killer in the making. She also said the costume design “speaks volumes” about the characters and promised viewers can “expect imaginative deaths that get very bloody.” Once again however, I’m unclear what those claims mean since there were no additional descriptors to explain exactly what makes “The Stylist” sophisticated, what wardrobe specifically communicates, or how identical murders committed via basic scissor stabbings constitute creative kills.
Unable to source accolades from someone who isn’t a Kickstarter backer or personal acquaintance of the director, I’ve no option but to fall back on my own assessment that “The Stylist” goes on an ambling ramble that doesn’t have much to say, even though it takes one hour and 45 minutes to say it. I offer that opinion not as a miffed man too clueless to “get” the film. This one I get just fine. I’m merely an ordinary moviegoer worn out by glacial pacing for a seen-before premise hungering for more substantial suspense.
Review Score: 45
Everyone else who has no problem with a fright flick that feels like “Lizzie McGuire” decided to get dark with a PG-13 Halloween special should do just fine.