Stress Over Hair Loss May Play A Much Larger Role In Looper Than Originally Suspected
Rian Johnson’s time travel action flick Looper is a movie full of big questions. Morality, causality, and fate all play large roles. Perhaps the most important question, however, is what the hell happened to Joe’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) hair? Seriously, he’s got a nice, full head of lustrous hair going on. Sure, he may go overboard on the product from time to time, but when his future self, played by Bruce Willis, gets sent back in time (don’t worry, this doesn’t give away anything more than the commercials), he’s bald as hell. His head is shaved down, but from the stubble ring, you can still see that there’s not much on top.
Check out this video that envisions Looper more as an anxiety tale about hair loss than as anything having to do with time travel or destiny.
Just a warning, a few light spoilers might be found below.
Honestly, who do they think they’re fooling? There’s a rapid montage in Looper where you see a greatest-hits style clip show of what Joe’s life becomes in the future. What he does isn’t so important for our present purposes as the fact that you see Willis with a shining mane of long, dark hair. Something about the look, the way his tresses frame his face, makes him look like a creepy vampire hitman, but he’s got hair. That’s what matters.
Maybe the stress of knowing what the future holds ultimately leads to late-onset alopecia. It could also have something to do with Joe’s consuming drug addiction, or perhaps time travel makes you hair fall out. There are a lot of possible explanations, but the fact is, he’s got hair, then a few years later, not so much.
Future Joe has definite reasons for wanting to travel back in time. If this video is to be believed, hairline plays a much larger role than Looper leads you to believe on the surface. It is possible that this topic was addressed in the script, maybe even filmed and cut out. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to further explore the role of hair follicles in time travel on the DVD.
