Movie Review: Towelhead

Towelhead
Starring: Summer Bishil, Aaron Eckhart, Peter Macdissi, Eugene Jones III, Toni Collette
Directed By: Alan Ball
Written By: Alan Ball (screenplay), Alicia Erian
Released: 2008
Grade: B+

Towelhead is based on a novel by Alicia Erian. Both center on a 13-year-old Arab-American girl during the Gulf War who is physically mature for her age. Sex is such a major element in the film. More than not though it is an uncomfortable sexual element, which ties in to a young girl’s suffering, desires, and path to finding herself.

Jasira Maroun (Bishil) is a young teenage girl who is growing faster than those her age around her. Her mom (Maria Bello) doesn’t make this any easier when she is living with her. She sends Jasira away to live with her strict Lebanese father (Macdissi) in Texas. He gets very uncomfortable with his daughter turning in to a women, forcing her to cover up her developing body. Jasira has struggles with her new surroundings that target her for being an Arab-American. Jasira is ridiculed by most kids in her school and even her next door neighbor that she baby sits treats her with no respect. The boy’s father, Travis Vuoso (Eckhart), a small-minded army reservist who has a fixation with Jasira appears to be more accepting. When Jasira finds one of Mr. Vuoso’s pornographic magazines she enjoys it far more than anticipated, a feeling that she is desperate to hold on to. Mr. Vuoso is unhappily married and can’t stay away from Jasira. He sexually abuses her when she tells him that he is hurting her and to stop. One of Jasira’s neighbors, Melina (Collette), begins picking up on the two of them being alone together. She tries to be there for Jasira as much as she can to be the mother she is a missing and just someone she can talk to when there is no one else.

Jasira has been seeing a boy at school who is very nice and caring towards her, Thomas (Jones). She gets along with his family and she has a real interest in him. With few other friends around and him being her chance to be in a consensual and caring relationship Thomas becomes very important to Jasira. When her father finds out that he is black though, she isn’t aloud to go anywhere near him. Jasira has little to hold on to as her father becomes more and more restrictive. When he starts to find out about the secrets that she hides from him he lashes out on her causing her to run away to Melina’s house. This seems to solve her problems for awhile since she has much more understanding and freedom there. However, she can only run away from her demanding father and the pains of her past for so long.

The cast was incredible in the film, really enhancing a realism in the environment we are brought in to. Aside from a smaller part in the made for TV, Disney Channel sequel, Return to Halloween Town, this is Summer Bishil’s first film. Bishil did an incredible job as Jasira even adding this victimization and conflict between youth and maturity, being trapped between the two. Bishil was many years older than her character, but she brought out the innocence in her while still leaving room for the independence in her that was desperate to come out. Although her character follows activity of someone much older, she is trapped in her age: attracting men that she doesn’t have the courage to deny. Bishil works off of entrapped weaknesses through much of the film, but her strength is still there. She is sexually curious and she makes no apologies for that. In the end, she learns to stand up for herself more and more. Aaron Eckhart gives another great performance in a character very different from any other I have seen him play; a complete scum. Eckhart makes Mr. Vuoso a very realistic character. He is a creep and makes you hate him in so many ways. Yet he does this with great charisma and appeal that although you can’t like him, you almost understand the control and even to an extent the appeal he might have over a young girl like Jasira. The scenes between them are very uncomfortable, but draw you in so deeply, creating this great tension.

I was really impressed with Eugene Jones III as Thomas, Jasira’s boyfriend. He had this very genuine quality about him. He also seemed to bring out every young teenage boy in his character, in his relationship with Jasira, but especially how he acted in the sexual aspects of that relationship. Although, some of these scenes still seemed a little disturbing because of their age, Thomas still represented the youth that Jasira should still have. Peter Macdissi did great as Jasira’s very conservative father. At times we could see where he was coming f rom, but at others he was just so ignorant and cold that created hate towards him. Toni Collette did very well as the concerned motherly figure in the film. Maria Bello had a very small role as Jasira’s mother, but she did well with the screen time that she did have.

Alan Ball did a phenomenal job in bringing the novel to life through the script and direction of the film. The dialogue is really rich and is constantly taking you by surprise. In a sense it is unnatural since every one of these characters speaks extremely bluntly, but it works so well in the setting the film takes in and it really adds to the upsetting and unsettling tone that makes Towelhead so intensely captivating. The one complaint I have about the film is it has a very abrupt ending. I wish a little more time would have been spent on it to illustrate the condition that we are leaving our characters in. We leave on a very unknown end. There are certain outcomes hinted at through symbolization of the dialogue that is spoken towards the end though. Overall, Towelhead is a very engaging film about personal and sexual identity, physical and sexual abuse, racism, and finding ones’ strength. Not only does it tackle all of this with understanding and compassion, but it does so with a great disquieting realism.