Review in a Hurry: Pedophilia, racism and war: Just another day in writer-director Alan Ball's neighborhood. His gutsy but queasiness-inducing adaptation of Alicia Erian's novel never should have left the desk drawer.
The Bigger Picture: Alan first unleashed his vision of dysfunctional suburbia with his script for the hit American Beauty, and Erian's novel must have seemed like perfect source material for his directorial debut. Towelhead, set in a Houston suburb during the first Gulf War, follows an Arab-American girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil) as she navigates her early teen years with virtually zero help from adults.
Everyone claims jurisdiction over Jasira's developing sexuality. Her mother (Maria Bello) blames Jasira for provoking her creepy boyfriend; the solution is to send the girl to live with her father Rifat (Peter Macdissi) in Texas, but he's no better, forbidding her to use tampons or shave her legs. On top of that, racial mistrust between Rifat and his white neighbors (Rifat is Lebanese), intensified by the war, complicates matters for Jasira. And let's not even talk about the scenes of statutory rape.
Clearly, the grotesqueries of suburbia are on sharp, graphic display here. Everyone is hateful except for poor Jasira, until Toni Collette comes onto the scene as a compassionate neighbor. She's the movie's one redeeming element.
There are many seedy, uncomfortable moments in Towelhead, and without the poetry of written word to validate them or reveal hidden motivations, this squirm-a-thon is interminable. Well-crafted novels of complex, disturbing material tend to be tricky to adapt to screen; this is a perfect example.
The 180—a Second Opinion: The 20-year-old Bishil convincingly plays a 13-year-old girl with incredible vulnerability. The emotional landscape she crosses is a rocky one, and she traverses it ably.