Hairpins

Hairpins stitches a brittle marriage into a silk purse of razor-edged social satire: an ambitious barrister, convinced that a gleaming cufflink and a witty dinner anecdote will catapult him into mahogany-lined boardrooms, finds his ascent throttled by a wife who treats decorum like an ill-fitting coat—buttons missing, hem sagging, cigarette ash drifting onto the Aubusson. Enter the secretary, crisp as a banknote, her perfume a promise of promotions; their liaison blooms in the hush of dictaphone hush and twilight taxis. Yet the wife, dismissed by critics of her own household, quietly requisitions the narrative: she buys a new hat, learns a new silence, and begins to rewrite the power ledger of her own life until the film’s final frame trembles with the possibility that every character has misread the ledger entirely.