At the movies: Towelhead.

The first trick that the new film Towelhead plays on the audience is simply in using the titular racial slur. Before the film even begins, you're on the defensive. I mean, it's right there, on the ticket stub, that word. And because of that, many people may come into the film expecting an explosive and uncompromising look at the difficulties in cultural communications between Muslims and the non-Muslim world in America.

That's the second trick, because Towelhead, the film, doesn't even mention Islam. Jasira Maroun (played by newcomer Summer Bishil), our main character, and her father Rifat are Christians of Lebanese descent, which sets up a fascinating dialogue about Christianity and racial difference that is neither explored nor even brought up. Bishil plays Jasira in an accepting and open way, feeling reminiscent of the many Avivas in Todd Solondz' film Palindromes. At times, the film posits Jasira's story almost as picaresque, with attempts at Voltairean satire, but more often than not, we get semi-confessional and awkward emotional landmarks in a young girl's development.

Think Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret, only with the first Gulf War unfolding in the background. When an Army Reservist neighbor (played by Aaron Eckhart) begins to develop an unusual amount of interest in Jasira and her newly-developing sensual self, things start getting really weird, and not necessarily in a good way.

The social constructions of Erian's novel must have been irresistible for adapter/director Alan Ball, who created Six Feet Under and wrote American Beauty. He's been slicing up the shenanigans of the prosperous and the affected for quite some time, now, and you can sense his palpable delight in shredding the way that people react to the Other, particularly when represented by someone of Arab descent. But something feels off with this film, and for every moment that works (and some do, beautifully, particularly Jasira's internal flights of whimsy that find centerfold models and their fluffy escapades as literal journeys of liberation), we have countless attempts at a snarky or shocking one-liner that just sort of thuds into nothingness.

I didn't hate the film (unlike most of the other attendees of my screening), but it's an overlong mess that seems to think it's creating a dialogue about the unspeakable, bringing the hidden out into the light for all to see. Instead, it's just a series of shocks slathered onto sitcom structures.