Review

Review Date: 19-March-06
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Ask the Dust (2006)

Journalistic integrity forces the confession that if "Ask the Dust" contained more sex, it might have procured a rating of "Just OK." Yes, staff of this esteemed critical institution went to the flick hoping to see a dark-haired, hot-blooded Irishman get it on (and on) with a bodacious, hot-blooded Mexican, and these hopes were sorely disappointed. Instead, the movie offered an hour and a half of tease in which said hotties do and say inexplicable things, culminating in a finale that negates the whole mess anyway. "Ask the Dust" thus earns a "Junk" for being criminally unsexy in addition to just plain stupid.

The picture at least opens favorably as it introduces Depression-era Los Angeles and one of its many lost souls. Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) is a well-meaning dreamer and fledgling writer who published a story in H. L. Mencken's journal and then moved West to find his fortune. But LA promises more than it delivers, and after several months the young man finds himself on his very last nickel. When he goes to spend it on a cup of coffee, he meets a beautiful waitress named Camilla (Salma Hayek), and they immediately enter into mutual hostility in the grand tradition of fated cinematic lovers.

The actors are comely, to be sure, but their interaction unfortunately resembles sociopathic assault more than lust-fueled repartee. Hayek and Farrell are noticeably hampered by the fact that they're meant to express both a wellspring of attraction and the horrible injustice of racism: she's a Mexican immigrant, he's an Italian-American with an egregiously Old World name, both are painfully self-conscious about it. This fosters a wounded-animal vulnerability in Camilla and a crippling impotence in Arturo, which in both cases renders the characters odd and unbelievable. (Especially when you consider that every time they stop fighting for more than a second she rips off her clothes and offers herself to him, and they don't have sex!)

The story gets more scattered and unintelligible as it clomps along. (It was adapted for the screen by Robert Towne, who's getting some flak for it, but I don't believe the book could have been that good.) While Arturo and Camilla appear ridiculous, their lurching affair looks almost normal compared with Arturo's tryst with a heartbroken actress (Idina Menzel, gamely attempting the most thankless cameo in recent memory). She might represent his muse, or his introduction to Life, or just an assurance that he isn't gay — it's hard to tell. In any case, by the time the movie reaches its clichéd, weepy climax (following the boring sex scene, too little too late), she has become irrelevant like the rest of its half-baked themes. After a decent beginning and a muddled middle, the film ultimately bites the dust. Or maybe it just bites.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.