At the Movies: capsule reviews of ‘Good Hair’ and other films this week

Capsule reviews: ‘Good Hair’ and others

Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

“Couples Retreat” — This is what life might have been like if the guys from “Swingers” had grown up, moved to the suburbs and turned into lame, sitcommy cliches. Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn team up again, on screen and on the script (along with Dana Fox), for this broad comedy about four couples who go on a tropical vacation together. In theory, they’re all there to support their friends Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) as they try to save their marriage through the couples’ counseling the resort offers. Little do they know they’ll get sucked into agonizing therapy sessions that reveal their own rifts. Under the direction of Peter Billingsley, another longtime Vaughn friend and collaborator making his first feature, “Couples Retreat” veers back and forth in a jarring way between crude sexual humor and supposedly poignant moments. The couples endure forced nudity and a wildly erotic yoga class; Favreau’s character, Joey, and his wife Lucy (Kristin Davis) each try to get it on with their respective massage therapists. But they also must bare their souls. Each of these characters is exactly the same person the whole way through, until one night when they all magically experience an epiphany that makes them more communicative, patient and loving. During such moments, a distracting, feel-good score — surprisingly from “Slumdog Millionaire” Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman — pipes in early and often. A few funny lines emerge here and there, but “Couples Retreat” mostly feels repetitive and overlong at nearly two hours. You wouldn’t mind getting voted off this island. PG-13 on appeal for sexual content and language. 110 min. One and a half stars out of four.

— Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic

“An Education” — Sixteen-year-old Jenny learns the ways of the world in this coming-of-age drama, but there’s a revelation in store for us, as well. We get the pleasure of meeting an exciting young actress who surely deserves to become a star. Carey Mulligan is radiant as a suburban teenager in 1961 London who’s curious and clever beyond her years but still rather innocent and impressionable. Although she’s a diligent student and dutiful daughter, she sits alone in her bedroom at night longing to be grown-up enough to live in Paris on her own, basking in the culture. Mulligan maintains a beautifully believable balance of these contrasting forces, even as Jenny gets drawn from the sedate and boring life she knows into a glamorous new one. Her guide is David (Peter Sarsgaard doing a solid British accent), a thirtysomething man with whom she experiences an immediate connection. He whisks her away in his flashy sports car to nights filled with concerts and late-night suppers and, eventually, weekend trips out of town. Even her protective parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour), who are initially skeptical of David’s intentions because of the age difference, fall for his urbane charms. Director Lone Scherfig and writer Nick Hornby find just the right touch here with some tricky material, based on the memoir by Lynn Barber. The challenge is: how to make David, and this ill-advised relationship, seem thrilling rather than creepy? Through Jenny’s eyes, we get caught up in the excitement, too, but as bystanders we know it can’t last — even before David’s dark side starts to surface — and that’s what gives “An Education” an inescapable tension. PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual content, and for smoking. 95 min. Four stars out of four.

— Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic

“Good Hair” — What’s so funny about so many black women wanting “white” hair? Plenty, it turns out, in Chris Rock’s surprisingly insightful documentary. The well-known history of black people straightening their natural curls is more tragedy than comedy, rooted in the bygone belief that all things European were better than anything African. But Rock illuminates this old story through a poignant mix of interviews, investigation and his trademark satire. More than a dozen famous and beautiful black women sit for Rock’s camera, ranging from the sage Maya Angelou to video vixen Melyssa Ford to an interior designer with a skin disease that has left her proudly bald. Their testimony illuminates today’s reality: Black women who straighten their hair are not ashamed of their heritage — like women the world over, they just want to work with what they have. There are many scenes in beauty and barber shops across the country, where the various meanings, rules and ramifications of black hairstyles are discussed. But the best revelations come when Rock examines the sodium hydroxide relaxer that turns nappy heads silky, and the origins of the shorn human hair that is “weaved” into shorter tresses to create the illusion of length and fullness. Rock is the perfect host. His ad-libbed quips and silly-serious questions put interview subjects and viewers at ease with this sometimes painful reality, keeping them laughing instead of crying. PG-13 for sex and drug references and brief partial nudity. 95 min. Three stars out of four.

— Jesse Washington, AP National Writer