Towelhead Reviews
CinePassion
The discomfort zones of a young girl cry for sympathetic toughness, not Ball's snickering at pubic hair and clammy suburbanites
Cinema Crazed
A philosophy of the appeal of innocence and perversion in a repressed world...
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Aisle Seat
Few may have paid attention during its theatrical run, but DVD should offer a whole new life to a smart, engaging film that genuinely has something worthwhile to say.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
What Would Toto Watch?
Towelhead makes "American Beauty" look like a quaint suburban drama.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Top CriticAs 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.
There is hardly a scene that does not produce exquisite discomfort and a strong desire to be somewhere else.
Creative Loafing
Deftly sidesteps the muckraking and instead serves up an affecting drama about a lovely child who can't seem to catch a break from most of the adults surrounding her.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Los Angeles CityBeat
Ball drops the poisonous little voodoo dolls he mistakes for characters into a ... realistic environment, as though that will somehow render his story more "serious."
This movie will challenge you on a number of levels, including some beliefs you'd never thought you'd question.
Philadelphia Weekly
An empty provocation that's about as classy and subtle as its title.
Jam! Movies
It is a multicultural Lolita that searches for, but still manages to miss, any redemptive core its source material may boast.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
It is certainly possible to make a transgressive movie about children in sexual jeopardy, and to do so in ways that realistically and intelligently depict the abuse while not revelling in it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
Compuserve
Ball knows how to fit his themes in seamlessly, weaving a charming, dark, funny, thoroughly entertaining parody of Americana.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
San Diego Metropolitan
Give Bishil props for a truly brave performance. Eckhart and Macdissi do what they can, as does Toni Collette as a concerned neighbor who tries to save Jasira from Eckhart. But the script isn't up to the actors.
Summer Bishil turns in a gutsy, quietly riveting performance as Jasira.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Time Out Sydney
It makes sense that the scenes are pitched between icky and titillating, but the lack of delicacy reduces everything to stock sordidness.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/6
The Cinema Source
Brings up some interesting points, but it's also too eager to shock and too eager to condemn.
Full Review
| Original Score: C+
