Towelhead (2008, Warner Independent)
purchase this DVD (Amazon)
Screenwriter Alan Ball rose to prominence with 1999’s American Beauty, a quietly disturbing look at a theme that has become something of a cliche for ’subversive’ filmmakers over the last few decades — namely, the supposedly diseased heart that beats beneath the perfectly manicured lawns of suburbia — so it’s perhaps only natural that Ball made his directorial debut with the adaptation of a novel that includes dark suburban secrets as one of its major ingredients. Towelhead was in and out of theaters in a blink this year (not too quickly to escape the eye of our film editor, Bob Cashill), but if you missed it during its original run, never fear — the DVD is (almost) here.
American Beauty was a movie that most people loved when it came out, at least until the inevitable backlash — but I felt about it then the same way I do now; specifically, I found it to be a very well-acted, frequently funny film that perhaps relied a little too heavily on portentous shots with Big Meaning for its own good. Still, even if it wasn’t as smart or powerful as it thought it was, Beauty was still plenty enjoyable, not least because of the bounty of topless scenes from young actresses. (What? I’m only a man.)
Young flesh is another theme that recurs in Towelhead, actually; the plot centers around a half-Lebanese 13-year-old named Jasira (Summer Bishil), who is shipped off to her Texas-dwelling father after her mother’s boyfriend is caught giving Jasira’s nether regions a shave. That Jasira didn’t ask for this bit of grooming doesn’t matter to her mom, who tells her the whole thing is her own fault — and that’s just the first piece of mind-bogglingly stupid parenting that our young protagonist is subjected to over the first half of the movie, because if Jasira’s mother is an emotional child, her father isn’t much better, ruling the house with an iron fist when he isn’t off canoodling with his chesty wannabe makeup artist of a girlfriend.
It sounds dark, and it is — even before Jasira attracts the attentions of her skeevy Army Reservist neighbor, Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart), setting in motion a chain of events that leads to the inevitably tension-filled final act. In fact, it’s so dark that you may find yourself questioning what the point of all this is — although Ball certainly has a knack for getting the best out of his performers, including the always-wonderful Toni Collette as a thankfully sane neighbor, the plot includes so many squirm-inducing turns that it’s easy to start feeling like Towelhead exists for no other reason than to provide viewers with the voyeuristic thrill of watching people do terrible things to one another (and mostly to a clearly confused teenage girl). (more…)
