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PLOT: A movie about the writing of a novel, it follows the day to day life of a penniless wannabe novelist in Depression-era L.A., through his affair with an alcoholic East Coast Jewish girl and his longer, but equally-doomed relationship with a Mexican immigrant waitress.
The sad truth of moviemaking these days is that the very marquee names you need to make a movie happen are the same ones who can sink it if actual acting is involved.
Case in point: Ask The Dust, Robert Towne's 30-year labour-of-love to bring the Depression-era L.A. cult novel by John Fante to life. Towne's friendship with Farrell, and Farrell's "it boy" status made the movie possible.
But where the movie is all dialogue and inner-turmoil, Farrell still comes off as someone whose idea of self-examination involves a vanity mirror. He gives a soft-spoken delivery to a dark, brooding, wannabe novelist prone to loud outbursts. In fact there are several lines of dialogue that refer to his voluminousness, when the fact is he's prone to murmuring.
As his counterpoint, Salma Hayek is much louder, all over the place and nowhere. Who knew she'd have trouble convincingly playing a Mexican American? (Though the argument can be made that she is frequently naked here, so who cares?)
All of which is bad news for Towne's metaphors-by-the-pound script. There's some quite pretty writing there, evoking an almost-mythical L.A. that was all but destroyed by the events in Chinatown.
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But the screenwriting legend is notoriously in need of editing, especially when he's as close to a project as this (remember The Two Jakes?). But even pared down, it would have required actual thespians to bring it to life.
The movie opens with Farrell's character Arturo Bandini sweet-talking his way out of an overdue bill at his Barton-Fink-like apartment-hotel. Down to his last few coins, he conspires with his aged, drunken neighbour (Donald Sutherland) to steal bottles from the back of a milk truck.
The novelist racket seems like a dead end, but regular letters (and the odd cheque) from H.L. Mencken keep his eye on the prize -- at least when it's not on Camilla (Hayek), a barmaid who dreams of marrying a WASPy gringo. In between some pointless subplots -- an affair with an East Coast Jewish girl (Idina Menzel), and a strange exchange with a buttinski bartender (Jeremy Crutchley) who's keenly interested in Camilla's love life -- Camilla and Arturo move in together in a house on the beach with a dog to play out their tragedy together.
There's a certain amount of filmic hamhandedness. Example: A character has a persistent cough. After a half-hour of reminding us of this, she coughs into a tissue. The camera closes in to show (ba-ba-BAAA) drops of blood.
Ask The Dust is a great-looking movie, from the desert to the busy, streetcar-filled old L.A. If you could turn the sound off, it would be worth admiring on that level alone.
BOTTOM LINE: Just a mess, starting with the casting of Farrell as a dark, brooding Italian-American (hair and eyebrows dyed black). Whereas, the metaphors-by-the-pound script by Robert Towne could have, maybe, been pulled off by actual thespians, Hayek has trouble convincingly playing a Mexican-American (though on the plus side she is frequently naked). It's a great-looking movie though, from the desert to the busy, streetcar-filled streets of old L.A. Kudos for that.
(This film is rated 14-A)