Medusa Deluxe – first-look review

A comedic one-shot mur­der mys­tery sur­round­ing a group of hair­dressers at a region­al hair­dress­ing com­pe­ti­tion, Medusa Deluxe is the debut fea­ture by writer/​director Thomas Hardi­man. Their work comes to a grind­ing halt after the dis­cov­ery that the rumoured fron­trun­ner has been scalped and killed – from here the film unfolds into a sto­ry of detec­tive work, rival­ry, and artis­tic obsession.

Although fore­most a mur­der mys­tery, Medusa Deluxe is also the sto­ry of the obsessed artist, in a less tra­di­tion­al sense than seen in oth­er films of its nature. Right from the open­ing scene Cleve (Clare Perkins) is labour­ing over her ​“fontange” and per­fect­ing the style in a bid to prove that even amidst the competition’s can­cel­la­tion, she is the best hair­dress­er. Even the hair­dress­ing vic­tim was rumoured to have been in his sev­enth hour of per­fect­ing his hair­style when he met his death. The artis­tic obses­sion sur­round­ing the com­pe­ti­tion breeds rival­ries between those most com­pet­i­tive which adds to the lay­ers of ten­sion and sus­pi­cion. Through this Hardi­man high­lights the beau­ty and intri­ca­cy behind hair­dress­ing and its artis­tic val­ue which can be made lev­el to oth­er more tra­di­tion­al art forms.

A stand­out strength of the film comes from the fiery, pre­dom­i­nant­ly female-led cast. The flam­boy­ant sto­ry­line is fur­ther enhanced by an array of char­ac­ters with incan­des­cent per­son­al­i­ties, the dynam­ics between char­ac­ters sup­ply­ing comedic relief whilst con­tribut­ing to the sus­pi­cion and intrigue of the mur­der mys­tery at large. Con­se­quen­tial­ly the cor­rect exe­cu­tion of these roles is essen­tial in mak­ing sure that the film is the­atri­cal with­out becom­ing gauche or corny. Nonethe­less, the cast was able to per­fect­ly embody their char­ac­ters with stand­out per­for­mances from Clare Perkins as the spunky hair­dress­er Cleve and Luke Pasquali­no as Angel, the effer­ves­cent lover of the mur­dered hairdresser.

The strength in the film’s cast­ing comes not only from the act­ing per­for­mances but from its diver­si­ty. Though the hair­styles were not always a focal point in the film it was enjoy­able to see the diver­si­ty in hair types includ­ed as well as in the hair­dressers them­selves through the bound­ary-push­ing hair­styles of styl­ist Eugene Souleiman. Although not the main point of the film, it was an impor­tant detail that will not go unno­ticed by those of us who have only over the last decade seen the cel­e­bra­tion of our hair and diver­si­ty in those work­ing on it in main­stream media.

Medusa Deluxe is visu­al­ly stun­ning due to the film’s skill­ful edit­ing and cin­e­matog­ra­phy. The one-shot aspect is achieved suc­cess­ful­ly through the seam­less edit­ing work of Fouad Gaber, with clear-cut cam­er­a­work which allowed for smooth tran­si­tions between char­ac­ter per­spec­tives through­out. This edit­ing works well to com­ple­ment the most impres­sive part of the film which is eas­i­ly the way it looks due to the cin­e­matog­ra­phy work of Oscar nom­i­nat­ed DoP Rob­bie Ryan. Ryan’s port­fo­lio is noth­ing short of impres­sive with films includ­ing The Favourite (2018) and Fish Tank (2009), and Medusa Deluxe is no excep­tion. Ryan is able to take a some­what plain build­ing, where the entire film takes place, and trans­form it into some­thing equal parts eerie and beautiful.

Medusa Deluxe is a fun and extrav­a­gant mur­der mys­tery that shines a light on the beau­ty of hair­dress­ing whilst leav­ing audi­ences guess­ing in this quick-wit­ted whodunit.