A 13-year-old American girl, white on her mother's side and Lebanese on her father's, moves to a Houston suburb and finds her budding sexuality causing a great deal of concern among the adults. Writer-director Alan Ball, who adapted Alicia Erian's novel with the inelegant title "Towelhead", has possibly too many agendas here (sexual precociousness, sexual preoccupation, sexual humiliation, etc.), however his main themes of racial ignorance and racial hypocrisy are translated to the screen exceptionally well. Never losing his needling, rude, satiric sense of humor, Ball occasionally falters with some of the story detail, yet he allows the characters to be thrillingly human--for better or worse--and he shows no fear here (his bravery is sometimes shocking). Ball also never gets in the way of his actors, most of whom do superlative work: Summer Bishil, 18 when the film was shot, is convincingly girlish in the leading role, at once shy, curious, and seductive (she's not playing a saint by any means, which makes this narrative even more provocative); as her mercurial single father who works at NASA, Peter MacDissi is marvelously maddening, and completely unaware of it (he makes his own rules for everyone to follow, bristling with comic frustration when life doesn't go according to plan); Aaron Eckhart as a pedophiliac neighbor continues to be a courageous, intelligent actor unafraid to be a devil on-screen; Toni Collette and Matt Letscher are terrific as a grounded, free-thinking couple who live without hang-ups. Maria Bello's role as Bishil's wild mother isn't shaped well, and a fantasy sequence involving a mall photographer is far too broad (it takes us out of the moment); otherwise, this is dicey, demanding film-making. It won't be to everyone's taste, although grown-up people who are up for the cinematic challenge will find a lot of food for thought here. *** from ****
Review of Towelhead
