Alan Ball’s Towelhead is—often
in the same scene—the most realistic and unrealistic
deconstruction of suburbia you’ve ever seen. Much like
American Beauty, the Best Picture-winner that Ball wrote for
director Sam Mendes almost ten years ago, the movie takes more
than a few liberties in crafting a setting of suburban hell to
express nonetheless-authentic themes about the dark emotions
lurking behind those perfectly-trimmed lawns and
symmetrical-lines of tract homes. But Towelhead, while
not as intellectually-stimulating an exercise as American
Beauty, boasts a better balance of realism and embellishment
because it isn’t nearly as self-important. Unlike Kevin Spacey’s
pot-smoking suburban victim Lester Burnham, Towelhead
protagonist Jasira Maroun (Summer Bishil) is an entirely
sympathetic individual. Yes, Jasira is confused and likes to act
out—such is the consequence of her chaotic upbringing—but she
acts as the perfect relatable agent to get viewers thinking
about the deeper narrative themes that Ball explores.
Jasira is an adolescent girl whose
home-life is, put simply, a living hell. Early on in
Towelhead, she’s sent to live with her emotionally-unstable
Lebonese father, Rifat (Peter Macdissi), in Texas because her
American mother (Maria Bello) can’t handle her “unladylike”
qualities. Things don’t go well: Jasira becomes the victim of
her pedophile next-door neighbor, Travis Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart);
has a sexual relationship with a black boy (Eugene Jones) at
school, perhaps only to make her racist father angry; and seeks
shelter with a mysterious couple who lives down the block (Toni
Collette and Matt Letscher). As contrived as Ball’s plot seems,
it works because Jasira is so profoundly mentally-abused by her
parents and her unstable surroundings that the horror she
attracts feels probable. Not to mention, when things get a
little farfetched, Ball interjects with often wickedly funny
dark comedy that breaks down the suburban stereotypes involved.
And the acting is phenomenal, too, with Bishil providing a
powerhouse of a lead performance as Jasira, Macdissi perfectly
balancing the evil of Rifat with the character’s own forgivable
psychological-problems, and Eckhart offering an eerily accurate
portrayal of a sexual-predator. Even if Ball’s ideas aren’t as
substantive or original as they were in 1999 when American
Beauty was released, Towelhead’s abundant good
qualities nonetheless allow the film to function as a
serviceable vehicle for the filmmaker to revisit them.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 9.12.2008
Screened on: 9.3.2008 at the
Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, CA.