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Review #689 of 365
Movie Review of Towelhead (2008) [R] 124 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $11.00
Where Viewed: Landmark Esquire Theatre, Denver, CO
When Seen: 23 September 2008 @ 7:30 pm
DVD Release Date: Unscheduled (please check back)
After the Credits: There is nothing after the credits
Soundtrack: Download now from 
- or - order the CD below
Directed by: Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under")
Screenplay by: Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under") based on the novel by Alicia Erian
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Summer Bishil (Return to Halloweentown) • Chris Messina (Made of Honor ) • Maria Bello (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor) • Peter Macdissi ("Six Feet Under") • Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) • Carrie Preston (Lovely by Surprise) • Chase Ellison (Quake) • Lynn Collins (The Number 23) • Toni Collette (Evening) • Eugene Jones III (And Then Came Love) • Matt Letscher ("The New Adventures of Old Christine")
Rifat welcomes Jasira to her new home, and in no time proves to lack the most basic of child-rearing skills. This character mixes poorly his own android-like Mr. Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", fact-based, 'rules to live by' with the ancient Code of Hammurabi. Jasira has barely known the man until now, and the forced move prompted by her mother's firm belief that this new start on things and strict environment of life under her father's thumb will be the best thing for her does not come as the welcome comfort for which she might have hoped.
Transplanted to this foreign world for barely a month, and Jasira's already discovered a passion for porn magazines, a loathing for the little boy next door she's forced to baby-sit every day after school, the ability to self-induce intensely satisfying erotic pleasure, and the advantages of tampons vs. maxi pads. Wouldn't that have been enough? Yet, by the end of the film, you'll know every intimate detail of her rise to womanhood at the 'ripe old age' of 13 and some change.
The title follows the series of racial epithets Jasira is called by unenlightened cretins at school referring to one-half of her ancestry. But, really, the film has far less to do with the cultural climate in Texas and bigotry or the 1991 Iraqi war as it has to do with the pre-occupation with sex in this young girl's mind. The cultural dimensions in that sense take a huge back seat to the pre-eminent focus of her young and inexperienced mind. That, in effect, consumes the film and overtakes whatever other relevancy it might have tried to tackle. High end talents Aaron Eckhart and Toni Collette take on important roles as characters on opposite ends of the spectrum in Jasira's life: Eckhart as the military reservist Travis Vuoso destined to be called up to fight in the Iraqi War but momentarily distracted from his mundane marriage of obligation by the sweet and innocent Jasira next door, and Collette as the nosey next-door neighbor who suspects there's something clandestine in Mr. Vuoso attention to Jasira. Eckhart's role is the most morally distressing role in the film, but it is Summer Bishil's character of Jasira that is the most disturbing. An actress, clearly far older than the role she's playing, Ms Bishil takes on the emotionally detached yet sexually compulsive young girl with an honest and frank portrayal. Unfortunately, Jasira's story is not one most people would willingly sign up to see. Certainly, stories like hers happen in the real world, far too often, but there's something almost prurient itself in the way the director feels the need to show what happens to her in every intimate detail. Was this necessary to help the audience comprehend better the world through her eyes? Whatever Mr. Ball's justification, the decision nearly draws a line in the sand forcing viewers to consciously decide moment by moment "should I stay or should I go?" Lots of people left the screening I attended, and I couldn't blame them. There are things that work in a novel precisely because they are left up to the imagination and discretion of the reader that a film's director may or may not choose to leave up the viewer of his film. In this case, Mr. Ball did not choose to leave anything up the imagination or up to inference. As a minor example of the depths to which he goes, rather than just allowing the viewer to conclude the toiled in the Maroun home is stopped up because Jasira doesn't know how to dispose of her feminine hygiene products properly due to a lack of instruction from her equally clueless father, we need to see him plunging around for five minutes and eventually extracting and shoving evidence of her using not just the pads he purchased for her but used tampons he did not. If you are a person who appreciates any degree of personal privacy and respects it for others, in other words, you probably shouldn't see this film. For the most part, these depths were neither necessary nor important in realizing the compelling aspects of the story. If anything, they push buttons and the envelope that would repel the very people who might gain something from having experienced the story; and that, simply stated, is a shame. It detracts as much from the art as it does the overall value of the film. With all due respect to Mr. Ball, he can make whatever film he chooses, it's just hard to comprehend why these choices, in his mind, made a better film. In such case, my experience always defaults to the example set by Sir Alfred Hitchcock and his decision not to ever show a single piercing of the flesh of Marion Crane during the infamous shower scene. The result ended up being far more powerful, frightening, and compelling for that which wasn't shown than it otherwise might have been. The beauty of filmmaking is that the director always has the option to show by inference, reflection, or reaction anything that happens in a scene. The difference between a brilliant director and one just getting his or her feet wet is knowing which heightens the result of the action and which panders to a lesser element. Perhaps Mr. Ball will learn from this experience and grow more as an artist in the field of directing.
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Other Projects Featuring Towelhead (2008)
Cast Members
Summer Bishil
• Chris Messina • Maria BelloPeter Macdissi
• Aaron Eckhart • Carrie PrestonChase Ellison
• Lynn Collins • Toni ColletteEugene Jones III
Director
Alan Ball
Writer
Alan Ball
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