I read Jason Bailey's DVD review of Towelhead at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=35793 and...

This movie was very good if you have read the book. The book is better of course, but if you didn't like the way things played out, well, that's how it is in the book. This movie is an excellent adaptation of this book. It's nothing more than an Arabic-American Lolita...I would have still really liked this film if I had never read the book...definitely worth renting, not so much buying as a blind buy...

I found the film just as provocative and disquieting as Ball's previous work. It rattles you, and while nothing is say overtly funny about a lonely girl's sexual awakening and subsequent abuse by her neighbor, this is, at times, a very funny movie. Like Alicia Erian's book, this is tricky territory for a movie to navigate, and nothing is played for mere cheap laughs. Ball has respect for his characters, even the rotten ones, and whilst not easy viewing, I hardly found the film to be the non-subtle sledgehammer that Jason's review ascribed to it.