Towelhead (2008)

Widescreen Edition DVD

In 1999, the film American Beauty won Best Picture and was commended for its bold commentary on the facade of suburbia and the troubles that lie beneath it. While many of my friends succumbed to overexposure syndrome and eventually decided that American Beauty was overrated, I still appreciate the movie to this day. Living in small town Missouri at the time and going to a theater that generally played safe and conventional titles, it was a rush to see this movie that dared to look closer inside the mundane lives of that guy who sits next to you at work, or that enthusiastic, smiling real estate agent who never seems to have a problem in this world. The mind behind American Beauty is Alan Ball, who penned the screenplay and later went on to create another brilliant character study on television, Six Feet Under. But recently, Ball has decided to take a stab at directing the novel adaptation of Towelhead.

Once again, we are taken to 1991 Texas suburbia. Our protagonist is not a lost soul going through a mid-life crisis, but rather a thirteen-year-old girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil). Jasira is half-Lebanese, but people tend to view her as related to the enemy in the Gulf War. Hence the derogatory and fitting title of the film. After being caught in an awkward, sexual act at home by her mother (Maria Bello), she is sent to live with her father Rifat (Peter Macdissi) in Texas. Her father is a wealthy businessman who enforces strict rules on his daughter with hopes that she will not become whorish. Of course, the hypocrite does not prove to be an effective role model when he is bringing home the occasional girlfriend for some overnight action.

Jasira decides to explore her surroundings and her sexuality as she becomes settled in to her new environment. Sometimes even sexuality chooses to explore her. This is in the form of her next-door neighbor Travis (Aaron Eckhart), a handsome good old boy who seems to take an interest in Jasira, and certainly not a healthy one. Let's just say their onscreen relationship is not a PG-13 one. Jasira is also sought out by an older boy at school who is in desperate negotiation to have sex with her. To make matters even worse, her father is daft to what is going on, but will likely become physically abusive if he ever does catch wind of what is happening in his daughter's life. In the midst of this confusion and sexual abuse, Jasira at least has a sympathetic neighbor (Toni Collette) to watch out for her.

What I love about Alan Ball's prior work is that he dares to shock by getting at the root of his characters. While American Beauty and Six Feet Under dig at uneasy sexual encounters or arguments, the payoff is that these interactions between characters seem so real. I cannot say that I feel the same way about Towelhead. I have not read the novel and I cannot consider the literary comparisons. It seems here that Alan Ball is going for the usual socking moments, but I never feel like there is a pay off. This film is sick just for the sake of being sick. It really pushes the envelope, but what exactly does it accomplish from pushing that envelope? The entire movie consists of Jasira getting beaten by her father, yelled at by her mother, molested by grown-ups, or sexually used by a boy from school. I realize I am not supposed to enjoy these moments, but they didn't make me think afterwards about how positively disturbed I was. Take for example Mysterious Skin, a far-more disturbing film involving pedophilia that actually gets its point across. Towelhead is supposed to accurately portray what would happen when a young girl sexually peaks at the wrong time and around the wrong people. But when watching this movie, it almost felt as if Alan Ball was one of the men in this film, just sitting behind the camera and nonchalantly enjoying this bruised child taking such abuse.

Everyone certainly does take their characters seriously. Bishil plays her character so realistically that it is almost scary. I take comfort in the fact that she was over 18 when making this movie. Aaron Eckhart has to turn in the best performance as slime ball Travis. It has to be difficult for an actor like Eckhart, who is at his prime with the mainstream, to play a character so selfish and manipulative.

The special features include two different panel discussions that revolve around the film. The first revolves around racism themes in the novel/film, and the panel includes Summer Bishil, Peter Macdissi, Alan Ball, and an expert on Islamic relations. The panel takes place on a small set that clearly served as an interview setting at a press junket. The sound quality is also distorted. However, the discussion is intellectually stimulating. The second panel discusses the same racial topics and includes Towelhead author Alicia Erian. Once again, the panel has a good discussion, but I honestly do not think the film is rooted in nearly as much racial tension that calls for these panel discussions. Racism is definitely an issue in the movie that does not go overlooked, but this movie is, if anything, is more cautionary toward sexual abuse and the exposure of susceptible young girls to sexual predators.

I realize there is an agenda behind Towelhead, but I do not feel it is effectively communicated in this film. I want to make it clear that the disturbing content is not automatically what makes me hate a movie. Some of my favorite films are absolutely sick. But what I see with Towelhead is the depiction of a lot of abuse with no real backbone from the filmmakers to explain why we must be exposed to this. It almost seems like the abuse that Jasira takes in the film is done in a positive spirit and we the audience are supposed to jut go with the flow. Towelhead is a very mean movie, and this surprisingly has little to do with racism, but more with taking this character and using her as a punching bag without effectively justifying those actions. This is a title I an unable to recommend.