B
If an award were given for the most unsettling movie of the year, “Towelhead” would win hands down. Alan Ball ups the ante substantially over his script for “American Beauty,” which many viewers found hard to take a decade ago, with this tale of a thirteen-year old Lebanese-American girl who not only becomes the sexual plaything of much older men while herself experimenting with sexuality with a fellow student, but must deal with a mother who puts her own desires over her daughter’s needs and a father who’s an frightening combination of stern parental authority and explosive anger. And it deals with these edgy subjects with grim humor as well as shocking directness. “Towelhead” is essentially a dark coming-of-age story, but while most coming-of-age stories aim for the heartstrings, this one hits you in the gut while making some sidetrips to the funnybone. It’s a tricky balancing act, and many will feel that Ball, directing his own screenplay, slips up. But at the very least his film is a challenging treatment of provocative issues at a time when even most ostensibly serious pictures are content to make do with relative blandness.
In the adaptation of Alicia Erian’s novel, set against the backdrop of the Gulf War in 1991, pretty, sad-faced Summer Bishil plays Jasira, who faces the anger of her mother Gail (Maria Bello) for having allowed mom’s lascivious boyfriend to shave her pubic hair. Gail, who automatically blames the girl rather than her man, sends her to live with her father Rifat (Peter Macdissi), who works for NASA in Houston. There she catches the eye of next-door neighbor Travis Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart), an Army reservist whose bratty son she’s hired to babysit, and who eventually forces himself on her. Meanwhile Jasira engages in some bedroom experimentation of her own with classmate Tommy Bradley (Eugene Jones), though Rifat objects to her having anything to do with him because the boy is black.
His overt racism is only one of the unattractive traits of Jasira’s father, who’s easily the most intriguing, if somewhat problematic, character in the picture. Stiffly self-righteous, Rifat owns a drably ordinary suburban house and is looked upon with some suspicion by most of his neighbors, who don’t understand that he’s a Christian strongly supportive of the war against Saddam Hussein—and whom he looks down upon with studied condescension. A martinet toward his daughter, whom he can suddenly lash out at for any infraction of propriety, he’s also a libidinous fellow who finds a gregarious girlfriend he neglects Jasira to spend time with. Macdissi captures his combination of rigid control and terrifying volatility perfectly, and adds to it a darkly humorous touch of absurdity that’s reminiscent of the smug self-assurance of Inspector Clouseau (a comparison that’s especially apt given the physical resemblance to Peter Sellers).
The other performers aren’t in the same league, though Eckhart gives the pederast just a shadow of sympathy and Toni Collette and Matt Letscher (an unfortunate surname under the circumstances) are likable as the neighbors who take an actively protective stance toward Jasira, as is Jones as the eager Tommy. Others, like Bello as the self-absorbed Gail and little Chase Ellison as Vuoso’s obnoxious son, are simply called upon to be odious, which both succeed at all too well.
As for Bishil, she’s physically convincing, but as written and directed Jasira remains an enigmatic character—we’re never made fully aware of whether she’s a naïve pawn of the men in her young life, or whether she’s more knowing and manipulative than she seems—a little Lolita, as it were. Perhaps the ambiguity is what’s intended, but the result is that the role is largely reactive, and while Bishil reacts plausibly, her blankness isn’t very revealing from an emotional perspective.
That could be said of Ball’s direction, too. He favors a solemn, undemonstrative approach for the most part, giving Macdissi, Collette and Bello the opportunity to lash out when appropriate but otherwise keeping things on the sort of tight leash that Rifat himself might have used. Some will find the degree of understatement and control positively suffocating, but others will feel that the hushed intensity, punctuated by outbursts of rage, suits the story, which would have been unendurable had it been treated like pulp. Visually the picture is plain, with unobtrusive compositions and cinematography that almost completely eschew any claim to style. But the editing rhythms alone have a lulling, mesmerizing effect.
Obviously “Towelhead” isn’t a film for everyone. Like Todd Solondz’s “Happiness,” the subject matter alone will turn off a great many viewers, and anybody who’s easily offended by explicit sexuality, especially involving children, should stay away. But if you’re willing to take a chance on a daring film that’s likely to make you laugh one moment and cringe the next, you may find it as haunting as it is uncomfortable to watch.