I pretty much assumed that any movie titled “Towelhead” would run into some controversy. But add a dash of pedophilia to the mix, and you have the producers of “Natural Born Killers”, “Kids”, and “Birth of a Nation” all turning their heads.

Towelhead is directed by Alan Ball, who I guess you could say already proved he could gracefully deal with the subject of child molestation in his oscar winning screenplay for “American Beauty”. Ball wrote the screenplay here but it was based on the Alicia Erian novel of the same name. The film follows a thirteen year old Arab girl aclamating herself to a small Texas town in the period of the Gulf War. She struggles with an oppressive father, a boyfriend who loves her but cannot have her, blatant racism, and a creepy neighbor played by Aaron Eckhart who lusts over her.

I will be honest here; I love controversy, especially when it comes to film. Like any avenue for art, film allows people to say and do things to test the waters of what is socially acceptable. These boundary pushing films make you think, and at the very least that thought may be “That was disgusting.”

I have not seen this movie, which originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival under the title “Nothing is Private”, but I did watch the trailer here. The film looks oddly across between a satirical comedy and sexually perverse thriller. To me this says complexity, which is what makes a film better than “Witless Protection”. Yet, I have never seen the movie and from what I have read, some of the graphic visual images may have pushed it too far.

My reasoning for this post is to give a heads up before heads started to roll prior to the August 8th release date. To get a better sense of the backlash, however small it may be, read this review from Roger Friedman on the Fox News Website. I struggled to find a overtly positive review but did hear that it had a good response at Sundance this year. Plus, it is only fitting that Fox News is presented as the only opinion.

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Tags: Aaron Eckhart, Alan Ball, Towelhead

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