TOWELHEAD (NOTHING IS PRIVATE)

In an era of uber-patriotism where stories from the fray about the Arab-American experience are limited, I reveled in the release of Towelhead and the reception it received from the critic and film communities. Often times, these are one in the same, but hopes were still high as indie and art house films are counted among my favorites. Towelhead would dash these hopes within the first few minutes, and like a patient in a coma, the subsequent 80 or so minutes would fail to revive me to a conscious state.

Based on the novel by Alicia Erian, Alan Ball adapted the controversial story of a rapidly maturing teen whose defiant tendencies and multiracial roots underlie a series of tensions including gender, sexuality, and class. Jasira, played rather indifferently by Summer Bishil has been raised by her WASPy mom in a lesser, but distinctly American environment, where the presence of a strong, let alone decent male role model is sorely absent. After a misstep by her mother's boyfriend, young Jasira is sent to live with her Arab father to learn appropriateness, which we all understand to be code for a mother feeling threatened by her increasingly more developed and attractive daughter. Jasira's father, employed at NASA and residing in a conventional American suburb is a walking contradiction and adeptly acted by Peter Macdissi. His inability to relate to his kin is matched only by his passion to preserve his daughter's virginity.

Among Jasira's non-related antagonists is a Reservist and his family, who represent all we have been led to believe is true about middle-class neo-con Americans. Conflict also presents itself in the form of an attractive male classmate whose is forbidden to Jasira because he is African-American. Neither resolves itself by the end of the movie, though illusions of such a thing exist.
Towelhead proved to be little more than a Lifetime movie. Lacking inspiration or grit in any measure, we don't know whether to root for Jasira to grow up more quickly like her peers or shutter at the thought that Jasira's attempts to mainstream her life and self-identify are in fact unbecoming realities of our culture.

The script lacked cohesion to a point of distraction. I feared in an attempt to attract the big names of Hollywood to the project only a few actors were matched with roles actually becoming of their talents, Toni Collette for one, whom you never doubt for a minute as the well-meaning, intrusive neighbor harboring a personal vendetta against the Reservist.

My hope would be that the book is somehow "better" than the movie. Whatever the case, Towelhead fails to connect in a big way and almost completely ignores how well-placed its release was in the timeline of our country.