Well mannered and good atmosphere. Peaceful movie

The director has once again managed to make a wonderful movie with good people. I liked it very much.

Directed by Robert Towne(Chinatown) Ask the dusk is an interesting noir film hoisted by some great atmosphere and cinematography. With Ask the Dust, Towne has not given us the great American love story, but he has presented us with a captivating view of 1933 Los Angeles and a tale of romance that involves us in the plight of the characters. Despite a "noir" feel to the proceedings, this picture is a love story as mentioned. There are other things going on, some of which get short shrift in the screenplay, but at the center of the narrative are a man and a woman who are destined for each other. Perhaps it's because of my familiarity with Chinatown, but there's an almost noir feel to Ask the Dust which is belied by its subject matter. The seeming contradiction between tone and content is not a detriment, however - it lends a layer of unpredictability to the story. If you are a fan of noir cinema Ask the dust won't disappoint.

The book is much better then the movie.

Slow and stupid. Didn’t finish

Writing comes in many forms, some are prettier and harder to nail down than others.

ok but not a documentary as flixter suggests good drama

Too depressing to finish watching.

Flat. Colin Farrell is miscast and fails to capture the passion of the Italian writer. Salma does a decent job. Could've been great but wasn't. Would like to read the novel to compare.

It's a nice film, well shot, with some amazing locations but somehow it feels a little too cheap and a bigger budget might have helped a little bit this nonetheless interesting film.

Ask the Dust is a interesting film thanks to the good performances of Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell. Other than that, it fails on every other level.

Better than I thought it would be. Really good.

<i>''You call me beautiful at home, then you are ashamed to be seen with me in public. You are ashamed of beauty you recognize that no one else does. You are ashamed to love me!'' </i> In the 1930s, penniless Arturo Bandini (Farrell) lodges in LA and tries to become an author, worrying that he?s too inexperienced to have anything to write about. He has a complex relationship with Camilla (Hayek), a Mexican waitress, which eventually inspires him to finish a novel. <b>Colin Farrell</b>: Arturo Bandini <b>Salma Hayek</b>: Camilla Mesmerizing narration, acting and story, <i>Ask The Dust</i> shows the desperation of the times. Colin Farrel and Salma Hayek have some good chemistry and some good narration and voice-overs. You become attached to Colin's character as he progresses through the story. The upshot is a careful, deliberately old-fashioned picture which has many admirable qualities. Filmed in South Africa, it creates a distinctive vision of 30s LA that doesn't overlap too much with Towne's Fante-influenced script for <i>Chinatown</i>. It fills a hillside hotel with deadbeats and eccentrics (including Donald Sutherland) and springs several surprising forces of nature, from unexpectedly heavy waves that turn a nude midnight swim into a near-death experience, to an earthquake that tears up a pavement. There's a startling supporting turn from Idina Menzel as a character so unusual the film comes to life when she barges in and finds it hard to not leave an impression. In contrast, Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek (who both look way too healthy and buff) play characters who are frustratingly charismatic. Their affair dawdles in squabbles for an hour, before finally coming into focus in intimate flourishing scenes. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel's shots are each a marvel of painterly cinema, just the right brownish, noir-ish lighting and shadows to create a marginal world of dream and destitution where only love could create wealth. And what a love. These two leads are to the camera born, their dark good looks making them as much brother and sister as reluctant lovers. Farrell speaks almost as if he is narrating, which he does as well, his intonations are weighty, uncharacteristic of the more flamboyant characters he is used to playing. Hayek has lusty dignity with a spicy stubbornness that makes you believe she is worthy of marrying this man and living happily ever after. End result a curiously irresistible drama, despite several strong elements,the most notable being newcomer Idina Menzel.

"I looked for Camilla everywhere,and everywhere I looked,all the faces seemed like mine.Tight. Worried. Lost. Faces with the blood drained away.Faces like flowers torn from their roots,the colors fading fast."

Watched about 20 mins before I was more interested in getting back the 3% space on my hard drive that this self-indulgent crap was occupying

As romances go, this was decent. The characters were really well done.

Kept my interest but was fairly slow. Love hate relationship starts with a badly made coffee. Didn't think the other drunk lady added much to the film. Good how women kept entering his room via the window - lucky he didn't get anything stolen.

Give this movie a chance. It's really good and you won't be disappointed.

"You call me beautiful at home, then you are ashamed to be seen with me in public. You are ashamed of beauty you recognize that no one else does. You are ashamed to love me!"

This movie touched on some very interesting points about a couple of self-hating ethnics who feel their lives would be better if they could hide their ethnicity by getting with a blue-eyed, blond person. They take out their hate for themselves on each other, but hate turns to love. This has the foundation of an awesome movie but the filmmakers just didn't go deep enough.