Towelhead (2008)

Calling this motion picture Towelhead makes the filmgoer blink for a second, as the original title, Nothing Is Private, is a bit less leading and more descriptive. Director Alan Ball creates an immediately uncomfortable setting when a young girl is sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend, betrayed by her mom, and shipped off to her frighteningly overbearing father. The central theme is the dysfunction of everyone around the 13-year-old protagonist, Jasira (played by 18-year-old actress Summer Bishil), and how the perpetual victim of circumstance has to find a survival mechanism while surrounded by huge amounts of chaos. The deck is stacked heavily against the adolescent, with the smears and epithets she endures from classmates as painful as the other types of abuse -- verbal, physical, and sexual -- she is subjected to from almost everyone around her in a variety of different ways. Toni Collette is again brilliant, this time as pseudo-hippie wife Melina; she and her husband appear to be the only two people who have a clue about morality in young Jasira's truly grim reality. Watching Aaron Eckhart's character crumble is equally upsetting, the film a finely threaded series of harrowing events which force heavy guilt upon the adults over their selfish and highly questionable choices. Jasira's emergence from victim to young lady is a powerful antidote to the repeatedly unsettling predicaments director Ball puts the viewer through. The film is thought-provoking and sharp, with fine acting throughout, but it isn't easy, as this cerebral essay is not about entertainment. ~ Joe Viglione, All Movie Guide