Grade: C+ | Genre: Drama/Romance Summary: John Fante's, Ask The Dust is a 1939, hipster's novel that is lost in translation to the big screen, confirming to me again, that some literature should be left to the ancient art of reading. Directed and adapted to the screen by Chinatown scribe, Robert Towne, Ask the Dust, follows the life and loves of an aspiring Depression-era author, Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) as he makes his way in Los Angeles, while becoming involved with a Mexican waitress (Salma Hayek). Arturo is a second-generation Italian, who dreams of landing a writing career and a hot blue-eyed blonde on his arm, while Camilla Lopez, the intense and fiery Mexican waitress, wants to marry someone wealthy and above her station. So what do they do? Of course, this couple runs headlong into a love/hate affair that is filled with angst and racial conflicts. This folks, is the entire film, honest. Director Robert Towne, who possesses a huge fascination with old Los Angeles and has done well in sharing that image onscreen in this film, reportedly spent years bringing this cool, celebrated novel to the screen after meeting the author of this book in the 1970s.

Depression-era Los Angeles was shot beautifully in South Africa, and while that does not seem fair, it worked like a charm. Towne and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Passion of the Christ) exquisitely captured the essence of the world-weary soul of Los Angeles in the late thirties, so in that sense, the film succeeds. Towne does know the City of Angels and all of the frailties, pitfalls and surreal vagueness it possesses, and he delivers the city as a separate character to the audience. However, this movie turns into a piece of a sunny film noir, if that is possible. Towne should have been the perfect director/screenwriter to bring this movie to beautiful fruition onscreen, however, the movie lapses into melodrama gets stuck on the beaten-to-death themes of racism instead of diving deeper into his characters and giving them life. Dim lighting, and gloomy atmospheric narration is offered up as the story is literally being written in front of you. Bandini, the hero (you cannot be bothered to feel sorry for) sits at a typewriter and wacks out on his woes about dames, and how utterly dismal his life is. Farrell's performance is not the problem here, for he does as well as he can with what he has to work with, the difficulty lies in the fact that the deeper characterizations from the book are not up there onscreen to generate concern for the characters. The dark pain of the book is felt, and the details are accurate, but the real challenge of creating vivid characters you give a toss about just does not happen, and it is not the actors' fault. The screenplay cannot seem to grasp the characters, so therefore the actors are not able to fully morph into Arturo and Camilla either.

Ask the Dust Starring: Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, Donald Sutherland, Eileen Atkins & Charlie Hunnam Director: Robert Towne View the Trailer (Quicktime) Related Articles The New World After the Sunset

There is one scene in the film that does solicit romance for the viewer, but it is due to the breathtaking cinematography of Caleb Deschanel, who captures the two handsome leads, rushing naked into the moonlit Santa Monica surf, who are then tossed about in the waves, while their joy somehow turns into anger. Solid performances are shared by Donald Sutherland, who plays Arturo's dissipated neighbor Hellfrick, and Eileen Atkins does well in a cameo as the landlady with a distaste for Mexicans and Jews. But the real winner in this film is the character of the city of Los Angeles itself, who is naive, unattainable, and unstable in all its ways, which is most dramatically shown with an earthquake sequence full of shifting pavement and shaken buildings. The production design and costumes are right on target thanks to Dennis Gassner and Albert Wolsky, but these factors still do not compensate for that missing something that should create empathy for the story itself.

So what do you wait for in this love story gone amiss? Well, the problem is, is that you're not really sure. The tension disappears like moisture in the hot California sun, and the ending is not really solid enough to grab a hold of. Outside of seeing Los Angeles in a time warp, there was little to cheer about in this film, however, you might want to give it a viewing when it hits DVD, as something to remind you to be nice to other people. And yes, that is the message of this film. Complicated isn't it?

Originally Posted: May 1, 2006