Towelhead

Screenwriter Alan Ball has always been fascinated by damaged people; he brought us the mid-life crisis of Lester Burnham in American Beauty, and the twisted, uncommunicating Fisher family of Six Feet Under. Now, his attention has turned to a thirteen-year-old Arab-American girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil) with his second film script and feature length directorial debut, Towelhead. Adapted from Alicia Erian's novel, Nothing is Private, the film is a no-holes-barred exploration of the young Jasira’s sexual awakening. From its very first scene, in which we see an older man helping the pre-pubescent Jasira shave away her bikini area, this film makes clear its intentions, and it certainly follows through. This scene will be followed by many more like it, as Jasira encounters a plethora of sexual experiences over a very short period of time.

Call me naïve, but Jasira’s age feels ridiculous in the film. Not because thirteen-year-olds aren’t having sex, but because they certainly don’t acquire a mature, adult perspective on these issues over the course of one semester. So much of Jasira’s dialogue feels premature and unrealistic, and the adult characters mirror this same lack of credibility, but reverse it. They become caricatures in their universal impotence, seeming excessively immature and irresponsible. Additionally, it’s hard to handle the sheer myriad of issues that Ball has inserted into this film; psychological, sexual, political, social, the list goes on! They’re so clumsily wound together, and without any moment of relief (comic or otherwise). In the end, the film is appealing in that classic ‘car crash’ manner. It’s difficult to tear your eyes away from its relentless explicitness and its ever twisting plotline, yet the pleasure is perverse. It will no doubt leave you feeling viscerally affected, but you’ll probably be forced to question whether you really took anything else away from the experience.