Ask the Dust

Robert Towne brings to the screen what has been called the greatest novel about Los Angeles ever written. Ask the Dust is the gritty tale of a young Italian man, Arturo Bandini (played by Colin Farrell) who struggles to write the Great American Novel while trying to pay his rent, get enough to eat, and fight his feelings for Camilla (Selma Hayek), an impoverished Mexican waitress. All the while, memorable lowlifes drift in and out of his life, eventually vanishing into the Southern California desert. Originally planned as a part of Towne’s “L.A. Trilogy”–Chinatown is the first–Ask the Dust’s story is relentlessly bleak and mournful, and fans of the novel will be displeased to learn that Towne foolishly has meddled with what was one of the greatest endings in modern literature