Movie Review: Hair Love

Referencing my last Turtle Thought, hair has been a really important subject for me. So, I decided to watch Hair Love.

Hair Love was originally a book written by Matthew A. Cherry and published on May 2, 2019. December 5, 2019, Sony Pictures Animation put out a short, animated version of it. Today, I watched and reviewed the latter.
Going in, I had certain expectations. Certain tropes that seem to pop up in every natural hair story. Girl doesn't like hair. Or girl wants straight hair. Or parents belittle girl's hair. Just something. There's always some sort of negative aura about the hair that the main character, usually a girl, has to overcome.
But not here.
We start out simple, a young girl, Zuri, wakes up and has to get dressed. The clothes quickly prove to be the easy part. She goes to the bathroom to do her hair, and looks up videos online to copy. After picking one, she looks at herself, so ready to do the hairstyle, but ends up failing miserably. This is when her father walks in, realizing he has to help her. We get a comical scene of the father and her hair fighting it out, before the dad is ready to give up and puts a hat on her hair. Poor Zuri tears up, motivating her dad to push through and succeed. All dressed up, the two drive over to the hospital, where they meet Zuri's mom. I can only guess what she's suffering from, but it's left her without any hair. Zuri's drawn her mother with a crown on her bald head to gives to her, and the two have a bonding moment. The family drives home and the end credits feature snippets from them growing and we can see the mom's hair gradually growing back.
Where to begin.
It's funny, relatable, heartwarming, and adorable. The characters are so well represented. They're black, but it's not their entire being. The girl already loves her hair and her mother's. Instead of giving thick hair a sort of alienation from the norm, the story elaborates on a family's relationship with each other on the basis of hair. Mom makes hair tutorial vlogs. Zuri wants to recreate one of Mom's videos. The dad and Zuri do her hair together. The mom lost her hair due to an illness. Zuri and the dad remind her how beautiful she still is. And they go home together. Innocent and loving. On top of that, the whole thing felt so real. I can't count how many times I went through exactly what Zuri did. Go to YouTube, find a video, try it, and fail. Only to have mom or dad step in and do it for me. It's a cycle almost every girl, and some boys, of any race can to relate to. The determination it takes to finish. The feeling you get when you're done. And how a day of braiding can bring two people together. I'm blown away.
And everything I said, really is just a summary. I cannot stress how good it would be to go watch the movie or read the book for yourself.