Towelhead is a sort of ‘Lolita meets Metilda’ with Alan Ball’s dark humor laced throughout. Jasira is a half-Lebanese, half-Caucasian girl who’s come of age and has discovered her sexuality. Many of the males in the movie have also discovered her sexuality. Her divorced parents are both neurotics and are more interested in their own selfish needs than in their daughter’s best interests.
The story pushes unspeakable ideas to the mental brink, where we know we are getting into uncomfortable territory and squirming, but sells it as not that far-fetched. When the man next door discovers that Jasira likes looking at his Playboy mags while babysitting his son, the scene is set for a series of events that leads to him sexually abusing her. In the final scene of this sequence, Jasira is complicit in her own abuse. Our jaws might drop at this concept, as in Lolita, but considering her lack of parental guidance coupled with her sexual discovery, it is not too difficult to see that for Jasira boundaries take a while to learn. Ball has an interesting view on just such experiences from his own life in this interview.
Ball’s dark humor is apparent in the quirky characters and their actions, as well as some embarrassing and repulsive scenes. Jasira’s mother, Gail, is so wrapped up in her own needs for companionship that she sends Jasira to live with her father when she discovers that her boyfriend has helped Jasira shave in a bathing suit. She tells Jasira that it is all her fault for not understanding how to act properly around a male. Some months later, Gail wants Jasira back because she split with her boyfriend and is ‘all alone’. When Jasira declines, Gail has a melt-down that is so infantile that one cannot help but laugh at her.
Jasira’s father, Rifat, is a humorous contradiction. He is always on edge and Ball depicts this well when virtually every time the doorbell rings Rifat says, ‘Oh, jeeze, what is it NOW!’ Yet, he is so intent on keeping up appearances and being a good suburbanite, that he takes a deep breath and greets the person at the door with sickening politeness. The flagpole war between Rifat and the neighbor at the start of the Gulf War are hilarious statements on suburban competition and conformity. One of my favorite dialogues in the movie follows. Gail has come to visit Jasira and her father at his house for Christmas and has just arrived:
Gail: Hey, what's with the flag?
Rifat: Oh, I'm supporting the war.
Gail: I thought you were protesting it.
Rifat: I'm protesting one aspect of the war and supporting another aspect. See, the mark of intelligence, Gail, is having the capacity of holding two conflicting ideas in your head at one time.
I will save the repulsive and embarrassing scenes for those who want to see the movie, but Variety states that “many scenes are too preposterous to be realistic.” Perhaps, but with elements of American Beauty and Six Feet Under, the comic relief from these scenes, while offbeat, helps us to get through the more jaw-dropping scenes of Towelhead that we might otherwise not be able to digest.
