Hal Ashby's "Shampoo" stars Warren Beatty as George Roundy, a popular Beverly Hills hairdresser who spends his life juggling customers, jobs and women.
The great joke of the film is that George exists solely to please other people. He's entirely selfless. Whilst Ashby paints the rest of society as being self-centered and selfish, George dutifully cuts hair, tends to women and bounces from one lover to another. The poster boy for altruism, he exists solely to make other people happy.
Though marketed as a sex comedy, the film works better as a political statement. It takes place during the eve of the 1968 presidential election (in which Nixon was elected) and attempts to capture the last vestiges of a certain crazy, carefree era, Ashby contrasting whimsical Pre-Nixon attitudes (nonchalant sex, free love, a kind of social cohesion which George can no longer maintain), with the knowledge that Watergate, corruption, lies and the general pessimism of the Nixon era, were all on the horizon. By the film's end, George can no longer love everybody. The glue has failed and myopia, separation, selfishness and egotism on a grand scale has begun.
Unsurprisingly, everyone in "Shampoo" aspires to success in both bed and bank. The characters are constantly working. Working at their jobs, on themselves, or on their lovers etc. But Ashby's larger point is that they ultimately have no significant political or cultural impact. They're too selfish, myopic and self centred, and thus the Nixon administration, which comes about at the end of the film, is exactly what these people deserved.
"Shampoo's" opening and closing scenes neatly portray George's own personal evolution. The film opens with him making love to one of his many women, the Beach Boys' lyrics, "Wouldn't it be nice if we were married..." pulsating on the soundtrack. The song emphasises the yearning beneath George's playboy image. By the end of the film, however, George is left alone on a hill top, watching as his women turn their backs on him and drive away with their respective partners. They've all moved on, whilst he stands there, a dead man with a pipe dream. Hard luck, man.
7.9/10 - Worth one viewing. Adam Sandler's "Don't Mess With The Zohan" would borrow heavily from Warren Beatty's work here.
