Fridae

Ask the Dust is a beautiful movie — it stars beautiful stars, the scenery is absolutely stunning, and the story, based on a bestselling novel, is beautifully tragic. In short, it's the perfect movie for romance movie junkies, and the other moviegoers can just take in the fantastic bodies of Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek, especially since both of them have full frontal nude scenes in the film. Who could ask for more?

Set in Depression-era United States, Mexican waitress Camilla Lopez (Salma Hayek) aspires to find a rich American to marry, and thus becoming a US citizen. However, her plans are thrown askew one day when she meets aspiring writer Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell), and their antagonistic first encounter still manages to lead to an undeniable attraction. Their love, however, is not easy — both have fiery tempers, and it is a tumultuous journey to discovering that they are really made for each other. And then...

Colin Farrell has acted in so many dumb movies that sometimes one can forget that the hot actor actually has some decent acting chops. He manages to make Arturo believable and easy to empathize with, but Salma Hayek steals the limelight completely. Camilla is feisty, sexy, and completely owns the screen whenever she is present. Maybe it is also because Camilla is unhindered by a rather clunky first person narrative, which Arturo has to resort to in order to deliver large amounts of exposition. It may be the only way to faithfully recreate some scenes in the book (which was written in first person), but it doesn't work that well when executed on film.

That said, director Robert Towne has managed to create a very aesthetically pleasing and emotionally involving movie, and if you are looking for a break from the action films that summer seasons are made for, Ask the Dust would probably be the movie of choice.