Review: Nothing Is Private

I chose Nothing Is Private based purely on the director, Alan Ball. He was one of the primary people responsible for Six Feet Under, a wonderful series from the fine people at HBO. He also wrote and co-produced American Beauty. He wrote the screenplay for Nothing Is Private based on the novel Towelhead by Alicia Erian, a semi-autobiographical account of her experience living with her Middle Eastern yet Christian father in Houston. It was his feature debut in the director's chair.

If my review sounds a little distracted, I'm dealing with secondhand smoke and some guy singing along to Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night". Just thought I'd let you know.

Anyway, Nothing Is Private is about 13-year old Jasira, played by much-more-than-13-years-old Summer Bishil, who has nothing but a spattering of TV credits to her name. She does a decent job, though I don't know if she pulls off age 13 completely. Jasira encounters a myriad of mal treatment, from her physically and emotionally abusive father, sexually abusive neighbor, and psychologically abusive classmates.

Peter Macdissi plays the aforementioned father, a NASA employee and Saddam-hating proud American citizen originally from Lebanon. It took me about two-thirds of the movie, but I finally recognized him as Claire's art teacher in Six Feet. Aaron Eckhart plays Jasira's neighbor, an Army reservist waiting to get called to Iraq during the Gulf War.

By the way, the Corey Hart impressionist just threatened someone, maybe me though I have no idea why, with punching them in the f***ing face -- nice.

Jasira's saviors are an anti-Texan neighbor couple played by Toni Collette and Matt Letscher. They serve up enough goodness to offset everyone else in the film. Okay, when things end, Ball shows us that not everyone is 100% bad, which is somewhat refreshing. During the Q&A, however, one questioner seemed a little taken aback that Jasira doesn't end up "destroyed", and that perhaps Alan was "sending the wrong message". Alan Ball argued credibly that to assume that all under aged people who experience "inappropriate sexual contact with an adult" end up whacked is to assume that a good portion of today's population is destroyed.

The movie was admittedly a little less than I was hoping for. Some moments seemed a little less than real, dialog a little weak. Some moments, though, played out very well, with good comedic relief when you needed it ("It doesn't matter what color your friend is if she's a girl. Don't paint me out to be a racist."). Maybe Alan just needed a little more time with the script. I didn't regret seeing this film, but I wouldn't beg you to see it. My imdb rating: 6/10.