I’m dipping into the DVD vault for "Towelhead," an independent film chronicling the coming-of-age story of a Lebanese-American girl living in Texas during the first Gulf War. It premiered in September at the Toronto Film Festival but failed to make it to the major cineplexes. The film raked in a whopping $371,000 at the box office, but not because the movie is bad. Much like everyone’s early teen years and their own battle with the puberty monster, this film is just awkward. If it were truly a bad movie, I wouldn’t review it.
The title of the movie is somewhat misleading. “Towelhead” invokes a racist undertone that would suggest that the movie is about the difficulties of a multi-race girl in an unforgiving and racist backdrop of the American South. It isn’t. Sorry to burst your, “I want to hate Texas even more” bubble, and I’m sorry to all you Texas readers (if there are any) to whom I have just alienated. If you notice, the IMDB title has been changed for just that reason.
If you are familiar with Alan Ball’s work as a writer, director and producer, you know that he is sexually driven; sometimes in a tantalizingly good way and other times, abrasive. I really enjoyed the first season of his new HBO series “True Blood” but that is a story for a blog of another color. The story, based on Alicia Erian's novel of the same name, follows Jasira, a thirteen-year-old who is the daughter of a broken home. Living with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, she is sent to live with her father in Houston, Texas after the boyfriend makes a sexual advance. After the move she is confronted with an emotionally abusive father, a sexually-frustrated-middle-aged-redneck neighbor, her own internal identity battle and desperate attempts at real love.
Sounds like a lot to tackle. It was and that’s why this film failed. There is beauty in simplicity. There was just too much going on in this film that it couldn’t get out of its own way. There were moments of brilliance and there were moments that were flat. It was like a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that sounds so enticing that you actually start it, get the edges finished, decide to come back tomorrow, but it never gets finished because you can never get all the sky pieces to fit together.
The two redeeming elements of this film were Summer Bishil and Aaron Eckhart, who played Jasira and the middle-aged neighbor, respectively. As if you needed that; although Eckhart as a 13-year-old half Lebanese girl might be funny. Bishil gives a solid performance and conveys the confusion of an unguided kitten quite charmingly. She is an up-and-coming actress that I would keep an eye on. However, the fact that she was 18/19 during the production eroded some of the innocence that I would have liked to have seen in the earlier scenes of the movie.
Eckhart, God save him, played the creepy guy roll to a “T”. The fact that this movie didn’t go mainstream was probably good for Eckhart’s career. He has made a nice name for himself over the past few years and this character would definitely jar loose his position in many moviegoers’ hearts. There were a few scenes between Bishil and Eckhart that I felt uncomfortable watching, which is likely what the director was aiming at, but no one likes to hear nails on a chalkboard.
Overall, I give this movie 2 1/2 God Bless Texas's out of 5 God Bless Texas's. There was a lot of potential with a cast that includes the aforementioned actors as well as Toni Collette but the plot needed to get hacked into two or three separate movies. It’s worth a watch if you see it on the IFC channel or if you have Netflix but there are better movies to see on DVD before renting this one.
Jake
The title of the movie is somewhat misleading. “Towelhead” invokes a racist undertone that would suggest that the movie is about the difficulties of a multi-race girl in an unforgiving and racist backdrop of the American South. It isn’t. Sorry to burst your, “I want to hate Texas even more” bubble, and I’m sorry to all you Texas readers (if there are any) to whom I have just alienated. If you notice, the IMDB title has been changed for just that reason.
If you are familiar with Alan Ball’s work as a writer, director and producer, you know that he is sexually driven; sometimes in a tantalizingly good way and other times, abrasive. I really enjoyed the first season of his new HBO series “True Blood” but that is a story for a blog of another color. The story, based on Alicia Erian's novel of the same name, follows Jasira, a thirteen-year-old who is the daughter of a broken home. Living with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, she is sent to live with her father in Houston, Texas after the boyfriend makes a sexual advance. After the move she is confronted with an emotionally abusive father, a sexually-frustrated-middle-aged-redneck neighbor, her own internal identity battle and desperate attempts at real love.
Sounds like a lot to tackle. It was and that’s why this film failed. There is beauty in simplicity. There was just too much going on in this film that it couldn’t get out of its own way. There were moments of brilliance and there were moments that were flat. It was like a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that sounds so enticing that you actually start it, get the edges finished, decide to come back tomorrow, but it never gets finished because you can never get all the sky pieces to fit together.
The two redeeming elements of this film were Summer Bishil and Aaron Eckhart, who played Jasira and the middle-aged neighbor, respectively. As if you needed that; although Eckhart as a 13-year-old half Lebanese girl might be funny. Bishil gives a solid performance and conveys the confusion of an unguided kitten quite charmingly. She is an up-and-coming actress that I would keep an eye on. However, the fact that she was 18/19 during the production eroded some of the innocence that I would have liked to have seen in the earlier scenes of the movie.
Eckhart, God save him, played the creepy guy roll to a “T”. The fact that this movie didn’t go mainstream was probably good for Eckhart’s career. He has made a nice name for himself over the past few years and this character would definitely jar loose his position in many moviegoers’ hearts. There were a few scenes between Bishil and Eckhart that I felt uncomfortable watching, which is likely what the director was aiming at, but no one likes to hear nails on a chalkboard.
Overall, I give this movie 2 1/2 God Bless Texas's out of 5 God Bless Texas's. There was a lot of potential with a cast that includes the aforementioned actors as well as Toni Collette but the plot needed to get hacked into two or three separate movies. It’s worth a watch if you see it on the IFC channel or if you have Netflix but there are better movies to see on DVD before renting this one.
Jake
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