Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Towelhead
Warner Independent Pictures


6.7

based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong disturbing sexual content and abuse involving a young teen, and for language

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello, Peter Macdissi, and Summer Bishil

When Jasira's mother sends her to Houston to live with her strict Lebanese father, she quickly learns that her new neighbors find her and her father a curiosity. Worse, her budding womanhood makes her traditional and hot-tempered father uncomfortable. Lonely in this new environment, Jasira seeks friendship and acceptance from her neighbors Mr. Vuoso, an Army reservist, and Melina, a meddling but caring expectant mother. (Warner Independent Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Alicia Erian (novel) Alan Ball
DIRECTED BY:	Alan Ball
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 30, 2008 Theatrical: September 12, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	124 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Film Threat Zack Haddad

Racism, teen sex, and war are all hot button issues. When you are a young person these things can seem new and confusing. In Alan Ball’s genius Towelhead, all of those above mentioned subjects go hand-in-hand in a truly wonderful cinematic experience.

100

Premiere Priya Jain

To call Towelhead exploitative is to miss the point. What made Towelhead the novel so extraordinary was the honesty in Jasira's adolescent narrative voice, the genuine way she misguidedly, but honestly, conflates the sexual attention she receives with the parental affection she really needs. With the film, Ball, though he drops the book's first person narration, is faithful to that voice.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Alternately disturbing, laceratingly satirical and affectingly poignant, the film, which he adapted from the novel, Towelhead, by Alicia Erian, is very much a companion piece to the Ball-penned "American Beauty" in its unwavering examination of the dirty little secrets and raging hypocrisies lurking just beyond all those manicured suburban lawns.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The movie belongs to the fifth-billed Bishil, a truly gutsy young actress who captures the essence of young female desire in all its adolescent confusion.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The result is a movie about the many forms of social and sexual abuse that does not make the abusee a victim but victor.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The movie puts Jasira -- and the audience -- through the wringer, but it also makes the ride worth it.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The story builds to a feverish pitch and then never reaches a satisfactory conclusion. But while it’s onscreen, the film moves, incites, and jabs, all while reminding us how difficult it is to grow up female and sane in this world.

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

Everything about the film is aggressively provocative, in both senses of the word.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A blackly funny provocation.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Ball may not have the answers but he eloquently and forcefully explores some of the potential ramifications. The ending may be too pat, but the journey to get there - bitter, spicy, and poignant - more than compensates for any last-minute fumbles.

Washington Post Neely Tucker

It's clever and original with an excellent cast. Ball's script catches a lot of the novel's pop, often word for word. I laughed a lot.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Beautifully acted and accomplishes exactly what writer/director Alan Ball set out to accomplish.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As it becomes clear that Ball, in essence, has just restaged American Beauty with a socially conscious paint job, the sensationalism of Towelhead looks more and more like a dramatic tic.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The heart of the movie is really in Jasira's moments with her father, a mass of contradictions that Macdissi plays with comic ferocity and genuine feeling.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

This third-act redemption raises Towelhead several notches, but it still ends up feeling like a well-acted and well-intentioned after-school special, a long way from the vividness and texture of Ball's television work.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The film is superbly acted (especially by Macdissi, who makes the father a borderline hysteric), but it's hard to know what to feel except, "How can any girl navigate this oversexualized culture?"

The New York Times Stephen Holden

A crude but scathing portrait of suburban life.

NPR Bob Mondello

The performances are nicely calibrated, even when the director isn't meshing them into a persuasive whole. Summer Bishil makes Jasira an appealing naif -- smart, precocious and curious, if too easily led by hormones.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

From its title on down, Towelhead alarms and manipulates, and succeeds in goading the audience like a schoolyard bully, but apart from Bishil's harrowing attempts to find herself, the strings stay too visible.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Towelhead is transgressive without being effectively subversive, gutsy to no particular end. It simply lacks style, which counts for so much in this sort of thing.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The potency of the acting is also undercut by leaden pacing and a sense of claustrophobia.

Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein

On the upside, newcomer Summer Bishil turns in a gutsy, quietly riveting performance as Jasira.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

What he (Ball) intends as knife-edge realism instead comes across as another con job.

Slate Dana Stevens

The 19-year-old actress Summer Bishil captures the terrifying combination of lubricity and innocence that is being 13. Her performance is the truest thing in a movie that, for all its good intentions, feels thoroughly phony and mildly embarrassing.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Ball's snide humor and cynical arrogance undercut his message at every turn.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As a director Ball amplifies the flaws in his own writing; his supporting characters are too broadly pitched to take seriously, and he tends to smack you in the face with the point of every scene.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

As a first-time feature director, though, he (Ball) seldom lets the material speak for itself. Every shot is a statement, every scene sells an attitude.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Ball's trying to be honest about adolescent coming of age, but since he's dishonest about everything else, the movie collapses in on itself.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

So disturbing it makes you uncomfortable watching it.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Ball knows one trick, and it's sure over.

Village Voice Nick Pinkerton

Ball, who can't conceive of human motives beyond the hypertrophic, smutty sexuality that's his stock in trade, primly divides his characters into avatars of Sick Repression or Healthy Liberation.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Branden R. gave it a2:
Why was this movie made? It had no redeeming qualities in it.

S M gave it a9:
Although a real drama, it is definitely worth watching.

Jan S. gave it a3:
I found this disturbing in a unsettling feeling of discust for the making of a sex abuse issue a pretty thing. I found it boring, way too long and should have not gotten the ratings it did.

Linda N gave it an8:
This is less of a comedy than you might think based on the previews, but a great story. Aaron Eckhart and the guy who plays the dad give fantastic performances. The girl's somewhat complex behavior rang true to me.

Sean F. gave it an8:
I would have given this a ten, but some of the content seems a little over the top. If you like movies like Happiness or American Beauty, this movie will not disappoint.

Jay H. gave it a7:
This movie tackles some pretty heavy subject matters, and pulls it off quite professionally. Very well acted by everyone in the cast. I never lost interest, fine direction. The score is a bit routine though.

Joan gave it a3:
I did sense the germ of an important story in this film; however, as a big fan of Alan Ball's 6 FEET UNDER, I was shocked at the poor writing in this film. Although the lines were spoken by a strong ensemble of actors, I felt as if I was watching a first-time student film...very disappointed.

Towelhead Warner Independent Pictures

Towelhead
Warner Independent Pictures