Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.

Hey everyone.  Since I’m doing a lot of writing in college, for all sorts of classes, clubs and projects and what not.  I’d figured I’d might as well publish some of the stuff I’ve written on here.  Some of this has been published in the The Berkeley Beacon (Emerson College’s newspaper) other is just stuff I’ve written or stuff that hasn’t been published.  Here ya go.

Towelhead

Awkward.  Very awkward. An entirely new level of awkward, in fact.  Towelhead, written and directed by Alan Ball of American Beauty and Six Feet Under fame, is not a fun movie to watch. It is not even remotely enjoyable. Strangely, however, it is not quite a completely terrible movie.  Towelhead can best be described as a bizarre mixture of Apatow’s Knocked Up bedroom humor and Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator perversion.  Only, in Ball’s twisted, satirical film, Hansen never shows up to tell the pedophilic Aaron Eckhart to “take a seat.”

Alan Ball’s continued fascination with a disgruntled suburbia moves to a Texas suburb where sexual dysfunction rules the day. The movie opens with a shot of young Jasira Maroun getting her bikini line shaved by a clearly much older male individual, setting the mood for what turns out to be a journey down an Alice in Wonderland-esque rabbit hole of bad touches. The lead role is of Jasira, a thirteen-year-old, half-Lebanese girl with extremely confused ideas. Specifically about what it means to be a young lady and who’s allowed to touch her. The part, played by relatively inexperienced actress Summer Bishil, is portrayed believably, which is a redeeming factor, because with out a genuine sense of misunderstanding on the behalf of Jasira’s character, this movie falls completely flat. The awkward pubescent vibe is allowed to blossom instead (Get it?), to the excruciating discomfort of those watching.

Towelhead is no American Beauty, it lacks the deeper meaning, poignancy, and tragedy. Instead, it relies heavily on awkward silences, bigotry, and the occasional instance of domestic abuse. Many of which are supplied by Eckhart, who plays a bigoted Army Reservist partial to underage girls,and manages to make one squirm in one’s seat on multiple occasions. It’s never easy to play the bad guy, but one who is morally wrong on every level and knows it, is a difficult a pill to swallow for the actor as much as it is for the person watching. It’s easier to play a psychotic murderer without a fleeting grasp of morality than a pedophile who knows what he’s doing is wrong, and struggles with why he does it anyway, as Eckhart manages to do well. Again, Alan Ball did not intend for this movie to be funny or happy, he was looking to speak for the kids this sort of thing actually happens to. The childhood victims of molestation who don’t know any better because they’re left in the dark about the facts of life and sheltered to the point where they have no idea what’s happening to their own bodies. He succeeds in this, but only through making this movie an hour and a half public service announcement with better than average acting.

The movies’ biggest failures came at points which were intended for comic relief and serve only to make those watching cringe in a slightly less drastic manner than the parts intended to be squirm-worthy. The only laughter in this movie comes from nerves and sexual tension that makes the audience feel like it’s back in middle school. Where American Beauty makes one want to cry, Towelhead makes one want to shower.

One thing that needs to be said about this movie is that men and women will have an entirely different experience with it. The obvious differences between the two genders’ adolescent anecdotes that are this movie’s subject matter provide women with many more ways to relate to Jasira’s feelings and her plight. Scenes depicting, *ahem* girl problems, may separate males from the story, where they would bring the better gender in closer. Some of the more graphic scenes, such as this movie’s take on the high school bathroom scene from Carrie, and the various instances where Jasira decides public masturbation is as awesome in practice as it sounds on paper, are more geared toward relating to female theater patrons. It should not be said however that men cannot relate at all to this movie, going to the local K-Mart to fetch some Maxi Pads with good ole’ dad is something so awkward that everyone can understand. Regardless, there’s no question this is a different movie depending upon what set of parts you have.

Surmise to say, Towelhead is a difficult movie to see, and by no means should it be recommended to friends if you want them to stay that way. Towelhead was a well acted film, but providing audiences with the feeling that they’re a peeping tom does not make for a happy audience that returns for a second viewing. Ball’s perversion makes this a painful movie to watch as well as bringing it down a level on the whole. It is far removed from other better known hard-to-watch movies, such as Requiem for a Dream and Deliverance, movies that are difficult to watch, but provide a lasting image that you don’t want to forget. Towelhead is something that the viewer wants to forget they’ve seen, but can’t. Overall, it was a spectacle one cannot tear their eyes away from, but that is not necessarily a good thing.