Dir. Alan Ball
Starring Summer Bishil, Peter MacDissi, Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Eugene Jones III, Toni Collette
Alan Ball is one of the most interesting writers in Hollywood today. If anyone doubts that, then they simply must not have seen American Beauty or Ball’s TV series Six Feet Under. He also directed several episodes of that show, and did a good enough job to win several awards. He makes his feature length directing debut with Towelhead, an adaptation of a novel of the same name written by Alicia Erian. Unfortunately, his well-intentioned screenplay and the mostly strong ensemble performances cannot survive the uneven direction that proves Ball maybe wasn’t ready to take on a feature length film.
Towelhead is set in the early 90s, just as the US was getting ready to fight the Gulf War. Summer Bishil stars as Jasira, an Arab-American girl whose flighty mother sends her to live with her strict father (Peter MacDissi), a Lebanese man with strict moral values, but who also happens to despise Saddam Hussein and is angry when people automatically assume the opposite. He’s not afraid to strike Jasira when he doesn’t like something she’s done and is completely unprepared for handling Jasira’s sexual awakening, which the story explores through two very different relationships.
The first is with her next door neighbor, known simply to us as Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart). He’s an Army reservist who is married and has a young son that likes to spout off racial epithets directed at Jasira (see the film’s title for an example). One day he catches Jasira reading one of his pornographic magazines and begins to take an unhealthy interest in her. Alan Ball is an expert at exploring humor in the darkest of situations, and this time he pushes it so far that he closes in on territory only previously covered by Todd Solondz in Happiness. However, he is successful because of the stellar performance of Aaron Eckhart, who walks a tightrope in exploring all the dimensions of this guy and comes away with a memorable character.
Ball is much less successful in exploring the relationship between Jasira and her teenage boyfriend Thomas (Eugene Jones III). The setup is atrociously handled. Thomas insults Jasira and the next scene he apologizes to her. The next thing we see, she’s been invited to dinner with his parents. It appears that Alan Ball is in such a rush to get through the book he’s adapting that he doesn’t have time to develop this relationship. There’s very little chemistry between the two actors, and there’s little reason for the audience to root for them to stay together, although the movie clearly wants us to do that. Ball says that the character is supposed to be 14 years old, but the actor that was cast isn’t convincing at all at that age, making it all the more awkward because Bishil is certainly convincing as a 13 year old.
As a director, Ball’s pacing is off so bad that the story almost plays like a highlight reel. It’s as if Ball wanted to make sure to include all of his favorite moments from the book that he didn’t have time for little things like character development or natural story progression. The main problem is that scenes are awkwardly strung together and end at artificial points. For example, Jasira becomes friends with a girl from her school and they have a slumber party. The slumber party basically lasts barely a minute until Jasira’s friend tells her she should apologize to Thomas, and then we immediately cut to Jasira apologizing to Thomas. Most of the story is told in this format, and at times it feels as if you're playing connect the dots instead of watching a movie.
Ball also has some problems with the way he stages certain scenes. There’s a scene late in the film where Thomas walks into a room and starts talking, completely unaware that Jasira’s father is there. It’s not like the guy is hiding in a corner. He’s standing right at the door, yet we’re supposed to believe that Thomas doesn’t see him until he says something awkward. That’s when we get the “comic” payoff, sold to us when the actor turns his neck so stiffly that I looked for the puppet strings that Ball was holding from above.
Alan Ball is a man who likes to explore dark themes with comic underpinnings, and the way he deals with such themes is commendable. Towelhead certainly has the right ingredients to fit in with his best work, but it just doesn't come together. Somewhere along the way he forgot to let his story breathe and give his characters room to grow. Outside of the brilliant Aaron Eckhart portrayal of Mr. Vuoso and an appealing lead performance from newcomer Summer Bishil, this is a seriously flawed movie that could have been so much more.
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