Ask The Dust (2006)

Set in 1939 Los Angeles, an Italian American writer (Colin Farrell) struggles to make a living although he has been published. When he meets a Mexican waitress (Salma Hayek), he's attracted to her but their relationship becomes contentious after getting off on the wrong foot. Based on the critically acclaimed novel by John Fante and adapted for the screen and directed by Robert Towne (an Oscar winner for his CHINATOWN screenplay). Towne botches the opportunity to make a faithful adaptation of Fante's novel. Towne turns it into a tragic romance. He takes the name of the female protagonist Camilla too literally turning her into Alexandre Dumas' Camille and coughing away as she dies of tuberculosis which isn't in the book. Towne's script emphasizes Camilla's struggle being Mexican in a white society while in the book the emphasis is on Bandini's (Farrell) attempt to hold his head high regarding his Italian heritage despite the racial abuse he received as a child growing up in Colorado. As it stands, the film isn't terrible, there are many good things about it. But ultimately, it's a failure. The period detail of 1930s Los Angeles is very well done, even more so since the movie was filmed in South Africa! With Donald Sutherland, Idina Menzel, Eileen Atkins and Justin Kirk.