Towelhead

By Clint Morris

For me, the Alan Ball-penned “American Beauty” felt a bit like an upper-class party you’d arrived to. Everything else – those that arrived earlier – seemed to be having the time of their lives, clearly understanding the theme of the night, but me, I was a little unsure of the suave event. And I don’t think it would’ve been improved with an abundance of alcohol either. Good film, sure. Great film, not in my mind.

From my point of view, the problem with “American Beauty” was that it flipped back and forth between clever satire and gimmicky smut. It seemed whenever Ball struggled with a scene, he just wrote in another ‘topless’ shot of Mena Suvari’s character or an unnecessary scene of Kevin Spacey’s obsessed elder playing yank-the-crank in the shower.

Ball’s latest film, which he directed (Sam Mendes directed “American Beauty”) as well as wrote, suffers from the same problem – it’s a good film, and like the former features superb performances and interesting characters, but a lot of it plays out as cinematic perversion.
Mendes could pull Ball back on “Beauty”, but on “Towelhead”, there’s nobody there to reign him in when the horndog gets the better of him – as a consequence we’re treated to such untasty sights as an older man’s fingers being treated to the crimson sauce as a result of journeying down a teenagers underwear, a young girl orgasming – several times throughout the movie – over a men’s magazine (given to her by the same man), and

You’d think the film was some sort of Todd Solondz-esque sex-drama by the sounds of all that, right? Wrong. It’s actually supposed to be – at least I think it is, I don’t know whether Ball’s too sure himself – about a young Lebanese girl, somewhat of an outsider, whose overbearing father leads her to find pleasures outside the family home (largely from the army reserver next door, played by Aaron Eckhart, and a young black man). The tale should be about prejudice, parenting and ignorance – and it does tackle such themes, just meekly – but instead it seems more interested in detailing the young ladies sexual exploits. It really is pretty perverted.

Having said that, “Towelhead” is a film I can’t find myself to hate – it holds your attention and features some terrific performances (Eckhart reminds us why he’s in such high demand these days), to despise. The beefs don’t outweigh the merits either, in fact they’re probably on par, just a pity the smuttiness of the script couldn’t have been reigned in a tad because there is a great story here trying to get out.