Summer Bishil in Alan Ball's "Towelhead",
based on the novel of the same name by Alicia Beran. The film opened in
New York and Los Angeles on September 12 and opens today in additional American
cities including San Francisco. (Photo: Warner Independent Pictures)
THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Towelhead"
Deep In The Heart Of Texas, Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Of An American "Dusky"
Beauty
By
Omar P.L. Moore/September 19, 2008
Alan Ball makes his feature film directing debut with "Towelhead", a film that
sneaks up on you sometimes. There are times when you expect the film to
insult you and it doesn't. There are times however, when you expect the
film to be more complex than it is, and it is not. Mr. Ball's satirical
drama based on Alicia Erian's novel, features characters that seem caricatured by design, but thankfully the
characters that aren't are the most sincere and genuine players in this story
set in a contemporary Texas suburb.
Marital discord and traditional customs have saddled 13-year-old Jasira Maroun
(Summer Bishil) who is constantly admonished by her father Rifat (Peter Macdissi)
for her feminine hygienic habits. She's not allowed to shave her pubic
region. And no tampons are to be worn by Jasira, according to her old man,
who was born in Lebanon and hates Saddam Hussein with a passion. Jasira
was born in the U.S. and her estranged mother (Maria Bello) has had just about
enough of her, which explains why she has given her the boot and sent her to
live with Rifat. Jasira has big American teenage dreams -- becoming a
centerfold playboy pinup in a magazine, documented for all the world to see for
immortality. Strikingly beautiful at such a tender and sensitive age, she
has indirectly been told that she is something of an ugly duckling, both by her
father and by the unforgiving kids at school who tease her and call her the most
obscene and racist names, including the title of the film. So when Jasira
becomes a paid babysitter for Zack, a young white kid living next door, she is
surprised at the attention to detail paid to her by Zack's father Travis (Aaron
Eckhart), a U.S. Army reservist.
Mr. Eckhart, so compelling and conflicted in "The Dark Knight" this summer, here
gives a more muted but equally complex portrait of a man who is as weak as he
thinks he is strong. (Harvey Dent would surely lock this guy up in a
heartbeat.) Travis Vuoso is a victim not of suburbia but of self-meaning.
He claims to love his wife Evelyn Vuoso (Carrie Preston) with a passion, but his
failure to communicate with her echoes his own inadequacy and deceit.
Travis is also something more repulsive and reprehensible but he doesn't
necessarily see it even when he stares at it in the mirror. Mr. Ball, who
won an Oscar for his "American Beauty" screenplay effectively charters the
arenas of isolation, escape, yearning and the search to belong and "Towelhead"
circles the fields of guilt and contradiction so admirably at times. Mr.
Ball also directs this film as fluidly and symbolically as Sam Mendes did
"American Beauty", but Mr. Ball offers a deeper look at his characters both
visually and philosophically as the camera lingers and ponders the major
players' every move of the lightness and into darkness and vice versa (good
cinematography courtesy of Newton Thomas Sigel.)
"Towelhead", which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is about
self-discovery in both children and adults and the deep disconnect that comes
between them but even more than that this disquieting film is about the devaluation and
control of women by men, especially of their sexuality -- which might make for
depressing viewing for most -- though "Towelhead" is more a voyeuristic exercise
with intimate glimpses at Jasira's adolescence and transformation into young
womanhood that may shock those who aren't anticipating where the camera goes.
Several characters, as if firing ammunition, punish young Jasira essentially for
being a member of the female sex -- except for Thomas Bradley (Eugene Jones), a
black student with whom Jasira embarks on a tender, amorous and sincere
relationship, one to which her father -- who doesn't do a great job concealing his
racism -- strenuously objects. Father claims to know best, even if he is
as misguided as a parent's best intentions can sometimes be for their child.
Miss Bishil is very good as a teenager searching for control of her own life and
her own choices. She never plays the role as a precocious minor, or as an
older actor knowingly aping the characteristics of a teenager. Miss Bishil,
in her first feature film lead role is more nuanced than that. Mr. Macdissi is also to be
commended -- he plays the father as unlikable though also as a man struggling to
assimilate within the American society he so proudly adopts.
The film's best moments come in Jasira's self-education and assertion yet the
flaws in "Towelhead" emerge in positioning its moral rectitude in Melina Hines
(Toni Collette) and Gil Hines (Matt Lescher), the married couple a few doors
down who suspect something sinister afoot in the neighborhood. It's not
that the eight-months-pregnant Melina and her husband aren't looking out for the
good of the neighborhood, but Mr. Ball expertly places them in the narrative so
that they appear to be more of a cloying and condescending (perhaps even
racist?) duo, sticking their noses and stomachs into matters in which they don't
belong. Still, as irritating they are to the story, it is this flaw that
strangely makes the film more impressive. Alan Ball presents no saviors or
sacred cows here, and the birds and the bees float front and center in this
smart, skillfully twisted facts-of-life tale.
With Lynn Collins, Shari Headley and Randy Goodwin.
"Towelhead" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong
disturbing sexual content and abuse involving a young teen, and for language.
There are some graphic representations of menstruation and feminine hygiene
products. The film's duration is one hour and 58 minutes.
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