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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 21649
Released: December 30, 2008 |
| Our Price: $2.85 |
| Used Price: $1.98 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A young Lebanese-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist and her strict father during the Gulf War.
Description of Towelhead:
Haunting and moving, Alan Ball's directorial debut, Towelhead, settles around the viewer for hours, days, afterward, as its delicate layers unfold. Ball, the screenwriter of American Beauty and the creator of HBO's splendid Six Feet Under, revisits some familiar territory here, yet bestows grace upon even his most flawed characters. The film follows the life of 13-year-old Jasira (Summer Bishil), quiet and compliant, who's shuttled between an uncaring American-born mom and a strict, bigoted Lebanese-American dad (Peter Macdissi). When she goes to Houston to live with her father, Jasira starts babysitting for a bratty neighbor kid, whose dad (Aaron Eckhart) takes an unnatural interest in the girl. A new classmate, Tommy, also desires the eighth grader, and one begins to feel Jasira's whole world is a predatory nightmare. Yet the film, while uncomfortable at times to watch, manages to provoke without appalling. Young Jasira is exploring her own sexual awakening, secretly (with echoes of American Beauty), and so desires adult attention that she tiptoes into a flirtation with Eckhart's character, Mr. Vuoso--who is undeniably creepy, yet Eckhart's performance gives Vuoso a begrudging sympathy, no small feat. It's the film's achievement that characters the viewer should be repulsed by--the harsh, overbearing dad; the pervy Mr. Vuoso--have more than a shred of humanity. And luckily for young Jasira, another neighbor, played by Toni Collette, takes her under her wing--and there's almost a palpable sigh of relief when she does. And the script is shot through with humor, which doesn't exactly leaven the intense subject matter, but provides some lightness. When Jasira gets her first period, uptight dad takes her shopping for sanitary pads (no! tampons! ever!), and in the harsh light of the drugstore asks the mortified girl, "Would you describe your situation as Light, Medium, or Heavy?" Bishil is a lovely new discovery, like Thora Birch or Wes Bentley of Beauty, and stays true to herself while the adults around her--with the exception of Collette's Melina--let her down, or worse. The cinematography, draped in shadows, underscores Jasira's unstated plea: See me. Notice me. Care about me. --A.T. Hurley
Towelhead Reviews:
Lebanese Beauty. 
2009-10-23 - A good film with interesting characters about a girl's life and a father who's kind of difficult to understand for most viewers; but I somehow related to him on many many levels. It's not the easiest thing to leave one's country and jump into a nation where there are so many different cultures, colours, people, ideas, philosophies and very little listening and understanding. For a single parent, the task of upbringing a girl (that too an only child) can seem so daunting especially because every single thing the parent ensues to protect his child will seem like an abomination to the bystanders who really have no right, no say over how..I'll stop writing. Anyway, the father's character was by far the best. Do watch this film, it will raise a hundred questions and viewpoints.
An Intriguing Film but A Horrible Message 
2009-10-10 - SPOLIER WARNING
I am shocked that no one else seems to point out the obvious. By the end of the film, the protagonist of the story, Jashira does not see anything wrong with having sex with Thomas... even though she is THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. Yes, this is an intriguing film. I did enjoy it at times. I get that it's supposed to be provocative and get you to think. However, I find her sexual relationship with Thomas just as disturbing as that with her next door neighbor... because at least with her neighbor she realized that something was wrong. Not once does she think that perhaps she is too young to be having sex, period. I'm writing this as a liberal NYC high school teacher. I just find it so sad that 13 year olds don't seem to have any innocence anymore.
too much sex and the worst representation of the Lebanese culture 
2009-09-05 - I hated this movie from the start but had to see it to the end to get to the moral of the story, but there wasn't any. Don't waste your money on this movie. It's the worst depiction of a Lebanese immigrant. As a Lebanese myself, I know that Lebanese fathers are very protective of their kids especially their daughters so there is no way a Lebanese man would leave his 13 year old daughter home alone to fend for herself. It is very hard to believe that Jasira's Dad would neglect her and allow so many people to take advantage of her. We came to the US when I was 15 and we were not allowed to date no matter what color the boy was let alone have sex. This man would've shipped his daughter straight to Lebanon if he even suspected that she is sexually active. The worst part is that Jasira seemed to enjoy all the abuse and even ask for it. I don't think teenage girls are that ignorant now a days or that stupid.
What is this garbage? It's no American Beauty. 
2009-08-04 - I only watched half of this movie. It seems to be nothing but a series of uncomfortable, uninteresting and pointless sexual scenes involving a 13-year-old girl. What was I supposed to feel watching this junk? Was it supposed to funny? It wasn't. Was it supposed to turn me on? It didn't. Was I supposed to sympathize with perverted, cruel, moronic classmates, parents and neighbors? I don't know how anyone who isn't at least one or all of those three things ever could. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because at least there were good actors in it. Everything else about the movie is a 1 out of 5 to me.
Truly Awful
2009-07-31 - Don't be fooled the title of the movie, the movie is not about racism at all. A 20 year-old woman, who looks nothing, NOTHING like most teenagers is selected to play 13 year-old Jasira, a naive girl with an abusive father and a pedophilic nextdoor neighbor. The dialogue between her and the neighbor is nothing like the dialogue I had with any adult at age 13, much less the dialogue with her (20 year-old) black boyfriend (himself a predictable skein of cliched stereotypes) driven to get into her pants. If the hypersexualization of teenage girls doesn't bother you, (and if that's the case you're probably a closet pedophile yourself), then this movie is perfect, since it is proof that sex sells at the expense of poor character development, empty dialogue, and insipid plot. I cannot believe anyone would enjoy this movie.
