Medusa Deluxe review — a whodunnit amid the hair-dos

For some, cutting hair is a functional trade. For others, it is a hyper-driven arena of ruthless self-expression. And that latter world is where we’re led by Medusa Deluxe, the low-budget, assertively high-impact debut of British writer-director Thomas Hardiman, made with dark comic gusto and shades of early Pedro Almodóvar. A setting in a regional hairdressing contest might suggest the gently sitcommy. The movie has other ideas, and then some. Framing his calling card as a murder mystery, Hardiman has already dispatched the victim by the time we begin. Scalped, since you ask, a touch of Cormac McCarthy amid the nervous models and rival experts in Russian weaves and Georgian fontanges.

Don’t expect wonders from the actual whodunnit. The script is mostly there to brim with acid one-liners. If now and then you picture Hardiman smiling a little too widely at them himself, many are very good. Meanwhile, renowned cinematographer Robbie Ryan does his virtuoso thing tracking characters through the backstage labyrinth of a municipal events space. It all adds up to something not so unlike one of the competing hair-dos: ornate, effortful and niche, but oddly hard to take your eyes off.

★★★☆☆

In UK cinemas from June 9