Ask the Dust
Paramount Vantage | Release Date: March 10, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
14
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Ask the Dust is more than an amorous period piece. It's a strongly bitter, strongly sweet poem in prose and motion. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
More than anything else, Ask the Dust feels like a compendium of desires - for a city, for a woman, for youth. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Ask The Dust may find Towne a little past his prime, but after so much time in the Hollywood wilderness, it's good to see him trying again. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Ask the Dust does manage to cast a spell. The film is not only an evocation of a bygone era but an emanation of it as well. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Occasionally overrated as a writer but consistently underrated as a director, Towne does a marvelous job resurrecting all the seedy jumble of the long-gone Bunker Hill neighborhood. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
At a time when juvenile movies often dominate theaters, this is an adult movie through-and-through, and evidence that there are filmmakers who care about entertaining a more mature audience. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Ask the Dust requires an audience with a special love for film noir, with a feeling for the loneliness and misery of the writer. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Eccentric, miscast (though stimulatingly so), not for all tastes but far from flavorless. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Its portrait of an artist hungry for experience is as timely today as when it was written. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
The film is faithful to the book's tone of dark ache and much of its detail and for the most part terrifically cast. But Towne can't overcome an essential challenge of the material: Arturo and Camilla are constructs and ciphers as much as they are vivid characters -- difficult roles, to be sure. Neither the screenplay nor the actors manage to get far under their skin. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
What seduces most about Ask the Dust isn't its verisimilitude, but its gloriously old-fashioned backlot sheen - the L.A. of old Hollywood movies and of our collective fantasies. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Thirty years of gestation have produced a film of great beauty with unfulfilled promise - a disappointment, but with much to recommend and be glad about. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
To Towne's credit, he's a thoughtful and conscientious romantic. He skillfully makes the two main characters a hot, volatile couple, deftly staging their courtship as if it were an erotic grudge match. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The film, which is literary to a fault, includes an earthquake, but if the earth moves at all, thank Hayek, who gives the tale a smoldering life that finally lifts it from the page. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The sepia-tinted palette of Ask the Dust drips, reeks and creaks of the seamy side of a city that takes more often than it gives. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
After an hour or so, Ask the Dust seems to have said everything, and the air starts to seep out of its hermetic atmosphere. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Something is missing, though. The themes are all there, but the movie doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier and rev you up. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Highlighted by a strong and sensual performance from Salma Hayek as the doomed heroine, elegant pic's muted quality and the central character's vexingly contrary behavior will keep auds from connecting with characters who themselves have trouble establishing bonds. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Farrell's performance possesses a touch too many mannerisms on loan from Tyrone Power and Clark Gable; you can almost hear the gears turning in his brain each time he cocks his head or raises an eyebrow in homage. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
A curiously resistable drama, despite several strong elements - the most notable being newcomer Idina Menzel. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Miscast, constricted, loose in tone and meandering in intent, it has far fewer moments of inspiration than unintended laughter. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
Ask the Dust is the ghost of a cult novel; it can't bring itself to life. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Ask the Dust is beautifully shot -- sepia becomes the ravishing, affecting Ms. Hayek. Unfortunately the images of the heaving waves of the Pacific in the moonlight, of mountains rising over scrub and cactus in the sunlight here, serve only to emphasize the emptiness of the drama unfolding in the foreground.
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Though the film offers a meticulously rendered Depression-era L.A., it's not in the same league as "Chinatown," for which Towne wrote an Oscar-winning script. Here, the characters seem shallow, their motivations murky. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
Watching it is like being in a restaurant where the waiter brings out a luscious platter of food, then keeps walking right past you. All night long. Read full review
50
PremiereJohn Migliore
Farrell and Hayek are two beautiful people with absolutely no chemistry. Even when they're lying in bed together, they're so far apart that they might as well be in different movies. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
It would seem Towne is too much in love with the book to recognize its fundamental limitations as a film. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Farrell is badly miscast as an ethnic Italian with an inferiority complex, the star-crossed love story has very little emotional pull, and even the (heavily CGI-enhanced) period atmosphere ultimately seems rather forced and self-conscious. Read full review
40
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Alternately grandiose and abject, Bandini is a sort of underground man, and if no more miscast than usual, heartthrob Colin Farrell miserably fails to convincingly render Bandini's neurosis. Read full review
40
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
One of the most eagerly awaited cinematic projects of 2006, which may be why it lands with such a curious thud. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
This story, like many of Towne's own, does not come with a happy ending. Or beginning, for that matter, because it's almost immediately clear that Ask the Dust bites the dust -- his dream movie is stillborn. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The movie lacks even the misplaced fervor of obsession. It's lifeless kitsch. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
The film is a particular disappointment considering its pedigree. Read full review
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