He's less prepared for the hormones erupting under his own roof. When Jasira comes to the breakfast table her first morning wearing short shorts, daddy hauls off and gives her a loving paternal crack across the face.
That's for starters. Taunted as a "camel jockey" at school and treated as an errant brat by her parents, Jasira has no idea how to define herself. The message of the novel and of the movie - and it's a worthy one - is that growing up sane is impossible in an America both hypersexualized and puritanical. The culture commodifies lust then punishes us for buying, and any young girl trying to navigate between "virgin" and "whore" as puberty kicks in is doomed. So Jasira's first period is a calamity that results in her father admonishing her to avoid tampons, since they're for married women only.
On one hand are the girlie magazines she discovers while babysitting the neighbor's obnoxious kid (Chase Ellison), tantalizing Jasira with erotic, all-American visions of happiness and breasts. On the other hand is the neighbor himself, a sweet-talking Army reservist named Travis (Aaron Eckhart) who can't keep his hands to himself. At least he gives her attention, so does it matter that it's the wrong kind?
There are scenes in "Towelhead" to make a parent cringe, obviously. There are more that just make a sentient moviegoer go nuts with frustration, because Ball stacks the deck while leaving his cards unexamined. Macdissi does what he can with the role of the father, but the character's a hateful cartoon; just as thinly conceived is the hip neighbor couple (Toni Collette and Matt Letscher) who offer Jasira a copy of "Changing Bodies, Changing Lives" and the proper socially progressive sympathy.
