| Original Score: B- | Feb 18, 2012

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

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.

| Dec 17, 2008

There is hardly a scene that does not produce exquisite discomfort and a strong desire to be somewhere else.

| Dec 11, 2008

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.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 24, 2008

It's impossible to look away.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Summer Bishil turns in a gutsy, quietly riveting performance as Jasira.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2008

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 | Oct 17, 2008

[Ball] succeeds admirably and with dramatic force, blending themes of racism, liberalism, emotional betrayal, abuse, hate speech and pedophilia into a confronting adult drama peppered with shocks and black humour.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 10, 2008

As confronting as the movie is, I saw it as hopeful and a caution, but I admit I'm biased towards freedom of expression. There are no questions of consent here, only one's preparedness to be confronted.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 10, 2008

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.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 26, 2008

The performances make the material more human and accessible, mainly from the film's brave young star, Summer Bishil.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 26, 2008

It's too much, too heavy-handed. Disturbing is one thing. Prurient is another.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 25, 2008

Towelhead needs more breathing room in order to allow the central relationships to grow, but it's a movie that sticks with you.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 19, 2008

It is so disturbing it makes you uncomfortable watching it. For the price of admission, you become an unwilling voyeur.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 19, 2008

Gripping, disturbing, powerful and likely outright offensive to many people, Towelhead is an often brutal study of clashing cultures, adolescent abandonment and sexual confusion.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 19, 2008

[Director] 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, ending with a laughably pat resolution that renders Towelhead a Bizarro World After School Special.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 19, 2008

It is a movie that risks everything, including alienating its audience, all in the name of staying true to the characters inhabiting its milieu.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 19, 2008

For a film that presents itself as a broadside against prejudice, Towelhead spends an awful lot of time flattering the prejudices of its audience.

| Sep 19, 2008

I understand what the film is trying to do, but not why it does it with such crude melodrama.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 19, 2008