Towelhead (2008)
Directed by Alan Ball
A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.
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What critics say influenced Towelhead
At times, the film�s sexual predation recalls the discomfiture provoked by Todd Solondz in Happiness, but Towelhead tells the story from the young girl�s perspective and, in the process, pinpoints the realistic confusion that comes from trying to make sense of our society�s conflicting signals about a woman�s desirability.
I kept thinking of Todd Solondz's "Happiness" (1998), another strip-mall parade of misery but one wracked with empathy for the monsters it portrays.
Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl and Louis Malle's Pretty Baby are unstinting in their honesty while retaining awareness of the sensitivity of their subject matter.
Compare this to Kubrick's Lolita , where it is immediately clear that James Mason's Humbert is a cynical shell of a human being.
Is this a real breakthrough, or just an exercise in transgression for its own sake, as we've seen before in movies such as Thirteen and Larry Clark's Kids?
Movies like Kids and Ken Park have been labeled pornographic and offensive, treating the teenage years of its characters like a visit to Caligulas falling Rome.
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Not since Splendor in the Grass has there been such a candid and sympathetic account of the mixed messages, double-standards, giddy highs and hormonal free falls experienced by teenage girls.
Towelhead is Ball's directorial debut, but he has a notable resume as a writer - his credits include the Oscar-winning screenplay for American Beauty .
Alan Ball returns to nasty, vile, repressed suburbia with Towelhead, an adaptation of Alicia Erian’s novel that the American Beauty writer fashions into another cartoonishly broad, repulsive vision of middle-class life.
This is good news-bad news since, while the film avoids much of its offbeat story's stomach-knotting potential for human wreckage, it can ultimately feel less consequential than "American Beauty," Ball's career-catapulting creation to which it bears more than just a passing resemblance.
Screenwriter/first-time feature director Alan Ball (screenwriter on "American Beauty") paints himself a darker color than even pedophile-styled filmmaker Larry Clark ("Bully") in making a film, based on Alicia Erian's novel, that unrelentingly returns to its primary narrative subject of a 13-year-old girl's genitalia and its every function.
The film was adapted for the screen and directed by Alan Ball, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of American Beauty and creator of the TV show "Six Feet Under."
Ball wrote "American Beauty" and was the creative mastermind behind "Six Feet Under," both of which had currents involving sex with minors.
Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl and Louis Malle's Pretty Baby are unstinting in their honesty while retaining awareness of the sensitivity of their subject matter.
Screenwriter/first-time feature director Alan Ball (screenwriter on "American Beauty") paints himself a darker color than even pedophile-styled filmmaker Larry Clark ("Bully") in making a film, based on Alicia Erian's novel, that unrelentingly returns to its primary narrative subject of a 13-year-old girl's genitalia and its every function.
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Movies like Kids and Ken Park have been labeled pornographic and offensive, treating the teenage years of its characters like a visit to Caligulas falling Rome.
In a small but quietly poignant role, Gemmenne de la Pena (2005's " The Weather Man ") also marks an impression as Denise, a chatty classmate of Jazira's who tries to be her friend, but is ultimately left out in the cold.