Review of Towelhead (2008) by Kris K — 03 Jan 2009

This is an excellently cast film with brave and strong performances by Eckhart, Collette, and the young Bishil. Ball again nails the head on suburban America but in vastly different ways than in American Beauty.

While maintaining political and racial relevance in setting the film during the first Gulf War, Ball is able to bring home troublesome, uncomfortable, and emotional and sexual issues that will likely make many viewers unsettled.

I would argue that this is his project here, that the political, social, and cultural setting within which such circumstances occur is to blame just as equally as those who have actually transgressed boundaries.

A necessary film, to be sure, but one that has already met with controversy. I would only ask people to remember -- while keeping in mind the plight of the main character here, too -- what it was like to be a teenager.

Those early and emergent desires and urges are what Ball is interested in here, especially as they collide with societal expectations and how devastating this stage of sexual maturation can be when the world of adults -- and, along with it, sexual, political, and social corruption -- latches on to it.