Review: Towelhead (2008) * 1/2
Summer Bishil and Aaron Eckhart in Towelhead
My hatred of Towelhead set in early and I never shook it. I think it was the scene at the airport where Maria Bello’s Bad Mother character is shipping poor confused daughter Jasira (Summer Bishil) off to live with her Lebanese father in Houston after the Creepy Live-In Boyfriend character helped shave her pubic hair. Bad Mother tearfully explains that the whole thing is Jasira’s fault and the audience laughs a little over how unbelievably bad mom is.
There is a tenuous line between cathartic comedy and unremitting bitterness in this kind of dark sarcasm, but writer/first-time director Alan Ball (American Beauty, HBO’s Six Feet Under) trips over it and falls on his ass. By the time a black classmate calls Jasira a sand nigger (again the audience laughs at the heavy-handed irony), I knew I was in for an unremitting slog with all the subtlety of a blow to the groin. For the next hour, I stopped hoping Towelhead would redeem itself and I just wanted it to end.
By taking a young mixed-race girl, separating her from an uncaring mother and placing her in an arid, suburban Houston hell with a strict father and a predatory neighbor, the novel’s author Alicia Erian has created a lens that magnifies the profound awkwardness and alienation of a typical 13-year-old in the throes of sexual awakening. Unfortunately, instead of using this magnifying glass for examination, Ball uses it to torture his audience like a malicious child burning the helpless creatures he finds under rocks in the backyard.
Instead of a film populated by recognizable human beings, this is a menagerie of grotesques. Even the well-meaning neighbors played by Toni Collette and Gil Letscher don’t come away unscathed.
Oddly, the most human character is the predator who takes advantage of Jasira. Aaron Eckhart brings a certain depth to his portrayal of the neighbor Mr. Vuoso, but it’s a depth that is otherwise nowhere else to be found. As a result, it falls to Summer Bishil to carry the movie, but the 18-year-old (at the time of filming) isn’t quite up to the task. By overplaying her character’s innocence and underplaying her false bravado, she doesn’t quite paint a convincing portrait of a 13-year-old.
I’m inclined to lay blame on the director. The fact is, Ball isn’t interested in presenting real characters with real problems. Instead he’s stacked the deck in order to prove that the world is a horrible place. It’s a fair point of view, but it’s an intellectual dead end that only works as comedy if it’s funny and only works as something deeper if it offers enlightenment or catharsis. Ball offers nothing here but his own stunted vision of the world.
Compare Towelhead to Céline Sciamma’s Water Lilies, which probes similar territory in its examination of young girls growing up in a spiritual and cultural wasteland. Where Ball stoops for shock value, Sciamma aspires to illumination. In the process she hasn’t crafted a perfect film, but certainly a more universal and more effective one.
Had Towelhead been bitterly funny instead of simply bitter it would’ve worked as a dark comedy. It might not have been memorable, but it would’ve at least been entertaining. Instead, its laughs are sparse, shallow and unsatisfying. Lacking entertainment value and absent anything richer, you’re left to wonder why the film exists at all.
Towelhead. USA 2008. Written and directed by Alan Ball from the novel by Alicia Erian. Cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel. Edited by Andy Keir. Music score composed by Thomas Newman. Starring Summer Bishil, Aaron Eckhart, Peter Macdissi, Toni Collette, Maria Bello and Eugene Jones. 2 hours 4 minutes. MPAA rated R for strong disturbing sexual content and abuse involving a young teen, and for language. 1.5 stars (out of 5)
Filed under: Reviews
Tags: Aaron Eckhart, Alan Ball, Alicia Erian, Andy Keir, Eugene Jones, Maria Bello, Newton Thomas Sigel, Peter Macdissi, Summer Bishil, Thomas Newman, Toni Collette, Towelhead
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Ouch.
Ouch…
Well, I generally like Allan Ball’s projects, all of them so far. But I hate unyielding bitterness in films, it always comes across as an annoying, snarky sense of condescending superiority. If that makes sense. I felt it a little in “American Beauty,” but I found a lot more to like there than I disliked.
I wonder, just like you d there, if the film is not funny an not entertaining, what is it’s purpose? Hopefully I can tackle that question soon enough.
Wonderfully written pan, Craig. This sounds perfectly miserable, but given Ball’s previous work as a writer, I’m curious: is it possible this could be viewed any other way? You’ve stated your distaste unambiguously, but if someone were to say, “Hey, this worked as a black comedy for me,” would they have a leg to stand on?
Phrased another way, is this film truly pure crap or is it subjectively possible to appreciate it? Some films exist in that gray area (lets take Barton Fink as an example) where praises and pans are both somewhat plausible. Then again, some films just plain fail, and fail miserably. I guess I’m wondering if you would give that “well, MAYBE you might like it” caveat to potential viewers.
I’m sure some people will see the humor in it and they’ll have a better chance of liking the movie I think.
The exaggerated sense of alienation may also resonate with some people, the way I think it was intended.
I’m not really offering this review to discourage people from seeing it. I don’t want to be a traffic cop, but I look forward to talking to people who see it. I’m eager to hear another point of view.
Craig, I was over at RT skimming the reviews over there.
Even people that had a largely positive feeling for Towelhead (it’s currently sitting there at 67%, I do believe) said many of the same things you did.
Basically, that the abuse and the pain are rather unrelenting, that everybody’s guilty to a degree and NO ONE walks away unscathed. Every character in this movie has an ulterior motive.
The deck is stacked against Jasira from the moment she travels to Houston to live with her father.
I’m grateful that you said yesterday in the comments section that Towelhead is not really exploitative. That’s a great relief. But ALAN BALL never impressed me as that kind of person anyway.
But yeah, I am rather curious about the purpose.
Thirteen is an all time low for most people. It’s A REALLY BAD YEAR for almost everyone. RIght across the board.
But it sounds like Jasira had to walk through a minefield of horror just to get to the other side. Who really needs or wants to see this? Doesn’t sound entertaining. Doubt it will be big box office. It’s likely WAY too provocative for the Oscars.
So why was it made? What’s the point?
This is a real disappointment. But I totally trust your judgment, sweetie. Like I said, even critics that liked it held up many of your points.
Looks like I’ll be giving this a miss. Don’t think I’ll be seeing Burn After Reading or The Duchess either.
This fall is a complete 360 from last autumn.
But them’s the breaks, I suppose.
Ow.
Interesting comparison with Water Lilies, which as you know I really liked.
Also it’s not surprising that Aaron Eckhart was able to take a character that was drawn as a caricature and give it depth. I’ve been very impressed with much of his work, most recently of course in TDK.
Well, this review is proof parcel you can issue a pan with the best of em Craig! Your concluding sigh however sums it all up: with a dearth of entertainment value and little in the way of thoughtfulness, it has “little reason” to exist. I may see it or I may not, but I doubt I’ll feel much differently.
The film has received some positive reviews. The most positive I’ve seen so far is Cinematical’s.
Water Lilies is an interesting comparison, as that film also delves into some difficult territory and often skirts the edge of being exploitive but manages to find the humanity in the situation and characters rather than (I assume) undermining it for shock value.
I’ll be curious to see how the general public reacts to this one.
The thing is, the characters in American Beauty were cartoons, but I felt empathy towards them. Even Annette Benning’s character. She was a harpy, but I felt something for her.
I don’t get the feeling that Ball feels anything for any of his characters, even Jasira. They’re just tools to help him paint his portrait of an awful world.
As I said in the review, I think the set up the novel provides is a good way to amplify the problems of a 13-year-old girl, but in the movie there is no point to it. I don’t mind suffering the tortures of the damned in a movie if I’m left with something at the end: Catharisis, enlightenment or even a good laugh.
I’m not sure if Ball is trying to skewer society the way Nabokov (and Kubrick) did in Lolita, but if he is, he failed. The characters are as broadly drawn as they would be in a straight ahead comedy, but this simply wasn’t funny.
I suppose I’ll have to start reading the other reviews now and see if I missed something. This should be interesting.
Alison, I liked Water Lilies too and I got a lot more out of it.
Well, Craig, that was one terrific and cathartic whipping, and I haven’t even seen the darned thing. Last night I saw Transsiberian and Man on Wire for a second time… And I was subjected to the trailer for this twice in one evening. Again with the hives.
This sounds like the art-house equivalent of Wanted, a movie molded out of sheer contempt and ugliness.
It sounds like there’s no Annette Bening here to make a one-dimensional character into something more.
Sam, I hope your knee surgery goes as well as possible. Good luck. (That was in one of my Watercooler postings yesterday but when I edited it, I mistakenly deleted that sentence.)
Thanks much for that Alexander, although there is no date yet. I am assuming sometime in mid-October.
Speaking of Kubrick, I watched Dr. Strangelove on TCM last night. Digital cable is awesome. :-)
I totally missed the knee surgery comment Sam. I saw your knee was troubling you, but the seriousness got lost in my haste to respond to everyone’s weekend.
Good luck with that.
Strangelove is awesome!
I missed the comment as well. Good luck with your knee surgery, Sam.
I skimmed RT. The Cinematical review felt like an “I guess I liked it, oh shit it’s Toronto and I’ve seen 100 movies and I have to write a review now” kind of circle jerk.
More compelling is Devin Faraci’s. He loved it and contradicts just about everything I say yet he’s not in the tank for Ball. I feel like I saw a completely different movie. “Big hearted”? What…??
http://chud.com/articles/articles/13413/1/SUNDANCE-REVIEW-TOWELHEAD/Page1.html
Thank you very much for that Alison.
Yeah well…
As much as I adore KUBRICK’S LOLITA (I consider it the touchstone of my youth - TOTALLY relate to Lo - um, yeah - there but for the grace of God go I - and I was about FIVE STEPS from being her) it’s quite powerful and disturbing.
I saw it for the first time when I was 13. (Oddly enough.) I couldn’t sleep all night after I watched it. It haunted me. But it actually is supposed to. The beginning and the ending are rather dream like in a mysterious foreboding way. Stanley knew what he was doing.
I’m sure that children have always been exploited and led down the wrong road by adults. I shudder inside to think that it will continue on forever. But it’s likely that it won’t ever stop if parents aren’t vigilant. They have to teach their kids right from wrong EARLY. And even then things can happen …
But LOLITA does give you characters that you can recognize and empathize with. As far as what I’ve been told, people didn’t talk about “child abuse” in that way in 1962. That came MUCH LATER. As to what they called it and how it was perceived, I don’t know. That was well before my time. But I imagine it was just as common back then as it ever was (unfortunately) - and no one ever talked about it.
Humbert isn’t really demonized. Not like he could be.
His thoughts and desires really do cross the line where Lolita is concerned. He does marry Charlotte to be near her. So intent is clearly there. But odd circumstances place Humbert in a position where he finally has access to Lo and we’re led to believe that, without the universe turning in that particular direction, nothing physical would’ve happened between Humbert and Lo.
The thing that always gets me about that movie is this: Sue Lyon is one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen and she was the perfect LOLITA. She’s supposed to be 14 in the film (the character was 12 in the book) and she all ready looked like a young woman. Hardly a pedophile’s dream.
(I know, I know. Stanley BARELY got to make the movie he did. He could NEVER have made a film that was true to the book. People back then would’ve just lost it. But bear with me.)
So she takes off after all that. Marries that other guy. Humbert shows up at her door YEARS LATER. He’s been all alone ever since she left. Lolita looks like hell. Her hair’s a mess. She’s put on a considerable amount of weight since she’s pregnant. She’s wearing horn rimmed glasses.
And Humbert still wants her.
From the day that she went away he has been able to do nothing but think of her. He doesn’t want anything or anyone else - and he lets her know that he will give up EVERYTHING if she will walk away with him now.
So it doesn’t really come off as pedophilia. Even though it technically is. True pedophiles don’t desire adult women and when they’re done with someone, they’re on to their next victim in no time flat.
I’m not excusing Humbert. Oh hell no. Somebody should’ve taken him out in the woods and shot him. Or he should’ve spent the rest of his life in jail. (He did anyway,)
But in some sick twisted way he really did love that girl. He had a romantic sexual obsession with her that wouldn’t die.
Like I said, I could NEVER excuse behaviour like that. But you do feel sorry for him in the end. He is such an utterly pathetic creature.
So then Lolita tells him that she could go never back to what she was. Humbert leaves her house, kills Quilty and dies in prison.
It’s such an enormous tragedy. All those lives ruined. But it’s such a brilliant film. I’ve always loved it. More so when I grew up and could better understand Stanley’s subtleties and subtext.
Craig, I’m with you. I can go on practically any cinematic journey if there’s going to be light at the end of the tunnel or some significant point made. But if there’s not, then I don’t want any part of it.
Considering the conventions of the time, it’s amazing that Stanley could get LOLITA up and running. Even in that particular context. The Adrian Lyne remake (with Jeremy Irons) isn’t nearly as good.
I doubt that there wil ever be anyone that will tackle this type of incendiary subject matter this well. No one really has to this point and it’s 40 years down the road.
Obviously Towelhead didn’t succeed in that particular objective. So possibly people should just quit while they’re ahead…?
Ugh. Sounds like Ball is channeling Paul Haggis in this one. I was not familiar with the source material and didn’t realize the take was so over the top. Based on your review, I doubt I’ll even put it on my Netflix queue. Good lookin’ out, Craig!
Saw Ball’s new vampire show on HBO the other night, and was decidedly underwhelmed. Seems he may have lost whatever it was he had. I did love “Six Feet Under.”
I agree Miranda that Humbert was actually in love with Lolita. That doesn’t excuse the wrongness of his damaged behavior, but it casts it in a different light. Tricky stuff.
As I said before, I hope plenty of people see this thing so we can talk about it. Looking over the reviews of others, most of the people blazing away at it seem like they were offended by the subject matter. That isn’t the case here.
I’m sorry, Craig. I took one look at the trailer and knew I wasn’t going near this thing.
Maybe Alan Ball’s inexperience as a director is really the issue here. Upon first reading about Towelhead, I really wanted it to be good. Will go anyway, if nothing else out of fascination to see what Aaron Eckhardt has done with his character.
“…but it’s an intellectual dead end that only works as comedy if it’s funny and only works as something deeper if it offers enlightenment or catharsis.”
A particularly erudite observation there Craig in a standout review.
Sam, good luck with the operation.
Miranda, I really liked reading your reflections on Lolita and their emphasis on the tragedy of child abuse.
Thank you, sartre. Very, VERY happy to have you here with us again.
Yeah, it never happened to me. The only way I can relate to it is having an unquenchable drive from the onset of puberty - and there were many, many adult men (from the time I was14) that were only too willing to take advantage of it.
If I had been just a little more insecure, more curious or incredibly heartless I could have just gone with it - and there were times I came very very close. Tougher than hell to stay on the straight and narrow. But I did it.
At that age (until I had a serious boyfriend at 16) I always thought I was terrified of men. It took me years to realize that I was far more afraid of ME. Simply having no limitations and doing whatever with whomever. Fortunately I’m a sensitive person and that kind of no holds barred thing with ANYONE and EVERYONE does not appeal. I’m sure it gets to a point with most people where they recognize it’s just not doing them any good.
If you’re an adult, it can be a self destructive PHASE. But if you begin that kind of damaging behaviour as a kid, I’m sure it can leave terrible emotional scars.
I guess the reason I react so strongly to it is because I’ve known quite a number of people (mostly men - and some men that have been either close friends or lovers) that have had their lives turned upside down by this horror as children. Some individuals NEVER get over it.
It has to be stopped. The cycle has to be broken. But I have no idea how that will happen. Some people go through that, never heal and become predators themselves. So it’s a vicious cycle that never ends.
I’m sure you understand much more than I do, seeing as you’ve probably heard about a lot of these incidents in the course of your professional life.
I don’t know, sartre. It would be fantastic if it would all just stop.
But will it EVER…?
After having seen Towelhead this afternoon, I’d say my rating — on average — is somewhere between Craig’s and Cinematical’s, though my reactions over the course of the film extended to both extremes.
If this is Ball’s first directorial effort I’m not surprised. And although the screenplay is based on a book I haven’t read, there also are problems with the writing.
My feeling is that Ball is too inexperienced a director to wear so many hats (he also produced). Indeed, the first several sequences of the film are too much to expect of the viewer — overexaggerated both in nature and in pacing. If I’m correct in guessing that Ball was trying to portray the furiously paced, contradictory sexual messages teenagers are bombarded with, he quite simply used bad judgment by overdoing it. Summer Bishil’s central character no doubt feels overwhelmed from all sides, but Ball risks alienating the audience by relentlessly and unnecessarily strafing the audience by not giving us time to recover from one discomforting and provocative scene to the next.
Craig, I don’t believe that Ball is trying to prove that the world is a horrible place. Maybe he’s just trying too hard to make his point — and to make a provocative, “serious” film — to know when to stop and to space things out a bit. The “stacking the deck” you mention could have been improved considerably by altering the structure or narrative. Next, although the actors for the most part do well, I suspect they were victims of misguided direction and a poorly executed vision.
That said, about halfway through I found myself able to find, unlike Craig and other reviewers, a film with some saving graces although it took some work to get there. Underneath Ball’s mishandling of things, I believe he nevertheless cares for his characters. Ultimately I found the film compelling and moving despite its major problems.
One reason I defend the film is that, despite the rough start, it continues to improve, for the most part, once the initial shocks abate. Conversely, if the film had looked promising initially but gone downhill, I probably wouldn’t be writing this.
In this film I can see the talent that brought us American Beauty and Six Feet Under. Those projects, however, had other creative voices in the mix. Hopefully, Ball will learn from this experience so that we can enjoy what he has to say without having to endure the onslaughts of his creative shortcomings and excesses.
Endings are everything and in this case I’ll agree that the film probably improved as it went along, but I was so annoyed and tuned out by the time it rallied a little bit, I just wanted it to be over with. Sometimes you make up your mind about a movie part way through and it’s hard to overcome that.
Part of the frustration for me is that there is a good message in here about the perilous waters for sexually maturing young women and the conflicting messages they receive.
Was it just me or was Mr. Vuoso the neighbor the most recognizably human character?
Craig, is Vuoso the husband of the Toni Collette character? If so, my answer is yes, though the Collette character isn’t that far behind in that respect. I think her character’s pregnancy, though a relevant element of the film, tended to limit what Collette could do within her role.
I think Towelhead is a good example of a problematic film whose excellence has been ignorantly compromised, sorta like a bottle of champagne shaken up before uncorking by an overanxious prom king. Ball seems to have been so anxious to create a novel message and effect that he failed to recognize — probably because of the overly tightened hand of inexperience — how his efforts would be received.
No Vuoso was creepy Aaron Eckhart.
I’d be curious to read the novel. I expect I might like it a bit better.
Oh, yes. I took your question in another way — Collette and her husband represented a sociocultural alternative to the prevailing cultural milieu.
But for sure, I think Eckhart did really well with his character — even though I found myself a couple of times wishing that another actor had been cast, someone not quite as crisply good looking. Eckhart’s portrayal does a lot for seeing sexual predation in a more human light. His work was excellent in shining a light into the emotional journey that occurs when a “good” person does something “bad.” We don’t see a demon, we see a person — not unlike people we interact and even identify with every day.
And yes, I’d guess that the novel is probably better than Ball’s film version. I suspect that he failed to recognize the mine fields one encounters when adapting such provocative action from the page (in our imagination) to 2 hours of screen time (in our face). Condensing the substance of such a novel, which typically takes many hours of reading over more than one sitting, to the screen requires more sensitivity and restraint than Ball was able to muster.