Colin Farrell is Art Bandini, new to LA. searching for fame and fortune, a writer down to his last nickel. he meets Camilla (Selma Hayak) a server at the local eatery, but they really start off on the wrong foot. and stay on the wrong feet the first couple times they bump into each other. their hot tempers get the best of them. they keep storming off, but they always return to each other. Camilla seems to be the adult here... she sees what happens between them, and even points out Art's immaturity and communication issues. of course, he resents it, and there goes his temper again. they have their ambitions. he wants to finish his novel, and she wants to get married. and become a U.S. citizen. donald sutherland has a tiny little role. it's a long film, at almost two hours. it's a race to see if they can accomplish any of their goals before an illness gets in the way. it's a cute love story. novel by John Fante. Directed by Robert Towne. won the oscar for writing chinatown; nominated for Shampoo, and nominated for three more! has only directed four films. so far.

Ask the Dust is a film based on the book of the same title by John Fante. It stars Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek together with Donald Sutherland and Idina Menzel.The movie was written and directed by Robert Towne.

Arturo Bandini is a young writer who comes to Los Angeles during the Great Depression in order to write a novel. He is down to his last nickel and decides to spend it on coffee in a diner. He is served by Camilla, a Mexican beauty he is instantly attracted to even though he treats her horribly during their first interaction. Soon the pair is involved in a relationship that finds them sparring with each other at first, but slowly learning to trust each other. Bandini meets the acquaintance of a desperate woman who sees him as the most desirable man in the world. Eventually Arturo and Camilla get away from the city and their love deepens as he attempts to finish his novel.

This is one of the better films ever made despite the way critics have despised it. The themes are all there and Colin Farrell together with costar Salma Hayek have rarely been so affecting, or so effective, as self-hating ethnics who find love.We simply do care for their characters.Although thinking is required to fully appreciate this film,watching it is definitely a rewarding experience.

Robert Towne's obvious love affair with John Fante's Depression Era novel, ASK THE DUST, is evident throughout this somewhat over-long film. While the story is a bit clumsy and self-indulgent with so many sidebars that the momentum of the movie gets bogged down in the telling, there are enough fine attributes to make it a recommended evening of reminiscence about Los Angeles, the City of the Angels in the 1930s.

Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) narrates the tale of a lad from Colorado with one published story in a magazine edited by H.L. Mencken who moves to Los Angeles' Bunker Hill apartments to write his big novel. The city of LA has never seemed so strange as it seems with Caleb Deschanel's magnificent photography outlining a city filled with dust blown miscreants - people with dreams at varying stages of dissolution. Arturo quickly becomes penniless, is pestered for rent by landlady Mrs. Hargraves (Dame Eileen Atkins) and for handouts by drunkard Hellfrick (Donald Sutherland),and still a virgin he plies his vision as a writer in a local café where he encounters the beautiful Camilla (way too much of a play on the character of Dumas' 'Camille'...). The two play a battle of wits and insults to cover their apparent infatuation with each other: Mexican Camilla is looking for a wealthy 'white man' to raise her out of her illiterate station and Arturo is looking for a sexual encounter to spur his writing.

During their extended 'courting' Arturo is vamped by Vera Rivkin (Idina Menzel),a Jewish housekeeper with grossly deformed legs who dreams of a man who will call her beautiful, and in a touching encounter Arturo displays the kind vulnerability lying under his rather callous and naive exterior.

Arturo and Camilla at last connect, and in a Laguna beach house they fall under the spell of love, a state that ends tragically, like the dust from the desert winds burying all hopes of the people of Southern California.

The story is a bit clunky and the dialogue feels forced at times but it is always a pleasure to see the work of Farrell, Hayek, Atkins, and Sutherland. The true beauty of this truly beautiful film is in the atmosphere and the mood captured by Towne and Deschanel. Their work offers a mood piece that forgives some of the awkwardness of the threadbare story and shows off the actors well. The film may move a bit too slowly for some, but for others, this is a moment of history well captured. Grady Harp