 Critics are expressing massive disappontment with Robert Towne's Ask the Dust, his fourth film as a director, which is opening in limited release. (The film is based on the classic cult novel by John Fante.) Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times calls it, "a film of great beauty with unfulfilled promise." Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News writes that the film is "rich on atmosphere, heavy with metaphor and short on the kind of vitality that might fix an audience's interest." Joanne Kaufman in the Wall Street Journal remarks that the film is "beautifully shot" but that the images "serve only to emphasize the emptiness of the drama unfolding in the foreground." Jami Bernard describes the film as an "atmospheric but awkward drama," adding, "The movie weds hard-boiled dialogue with over-the-top medlodrama. The result is enough to qualify for the Camp Hall of Fame." |
