Towelhead

Can you laugh in a movie that includes two statutory rapes of a 13-year-old girl? Can you get past the camera playing peekaboo with her (almost) bared breasts?

These are just some of the questions posed by "Towelhead," Alan Ball's smart but visually troubling adaptation of Alicia Erian's 2005 novel of the same name, which portrays a young Lebanese American girl growing up in a soulless Houston suburb.

I think I liked it, or most of it. 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.

But there's that teasing camera work and the film's obsession with a young girl's sexuality. A little goes a long way in portraying a 13-year-old's physical awakening, particularly when much of it has to do with Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart), a married Army reservist next door who at one point asks her to strip for him.

Such is life for Jesira (newcomer Summer Bishil in a nice turn), who is sent to live with her dad after her mother blames her for a twisted escapade that involves her mother's boyfriend shaving Jesira's just-developing body hair.

Dad is Rifat Maroun (Peter Macdissi), a NASA engineer so tightly wound he wears a tie around the house. One minute he's smacking Jesira for the indecency of wearing shorts and a tank top to breakfast, the next he's leaving her so he can frolic with his sweetie.

The kids at school insult her, and she falls for Thomas (Eugene Jones), the first boy who is even vaguely polite. He's black, and you can guess what Daddy dearest is going to think about that.

The main problem stares you in the face in almost every scene: Bishil was 18 when this movie was filmed. It doesn't really register that she's supposed to be 13 until someone mentions it. Visually we're seeing a late-teenage girl experiment with sex, which is hardly shocking. But the story is that we're watching a child be exploited, ignored or abused. It's jarring, which might be the best single word for this dark little foray into teen sex in the suburbs.

-- Neely Tucker

Contains strong disturbing sexual content and abuse involving a young teen, and language.