The Dust Factory (2004)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Waste of time

Admirable film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I enjoyed this movie, but I have an idea a lot was left on the cutting room floor. The hardest part of being a director is either putting your vision on the screen in under 120 minutes or creating a movie so compelling that the audience will sit for 3 hours.There is so much we don't know about Ryan and his family. We know he is mute through trauma, his father's death, but we don't know how long since his father's death since apparently at the end of the movie his mother either has a boyfriend or new husband. Which is why I think that some of those details got cut out for the sake of time.All that aside, Ryan Kelly and Hayden Panettiere were very compelling as the young actors. There is a sweet vulnerability about Ryan and a sad undercurrent to Hayden's joie de vivre.There is also a very strong performance by Armin Mueller-Stahl as the grandfather.I enjoyed the movie, as I said in my title, but wish that Mr. Small could have put his story on the screen with more clarity.

This film is fantastic. The director has a wonderful imagination. Hayden Panettiere is so cute and boy can she act. Ryan Kelley is also fantastic, but i think Hayden steals the show as Melanie. The story line is a bit slow to start with, but if you keep on watching the film, you will fall in love with Hayden and the way she smiles. The only bit that i don't understand is when the Ringmaster walks over and grabs onto Ryan and tries to take him back to his house. The grandfather is superb. He is so informative. Even though he played a man with Altzheimerz disease, he is well read. Hayden P. is so hot, i would like to meet her, but if i can't get to Hollywood, i hope she could come to Australia to shoot a film.

I had not heard of this movie but came across it at my public library. It seemed like an interesting, enchanting story, my wife and I watched it last night along with a teenage neighbor. While we enjoyed it, most of the time we were puzzled by what was shown and what was said. We weren't sure what the point was, but in the end it probably can be summed up, 'If you are afraid of dying, then you probably also are afraid of living.'Ryan Flynn (Ryan Kelley) has just lost his grandma, had already lost his dad in a train accident, and now his grandfather was incoherent. Traumatized, young Ryan no longer spoke, although he could have. In an unusual sequence he meets a pretty and happy girl Melanie (Hayden Panattiere) in his somewhat familiar surroundings, but things just aren't the way they seem to be. What follows is Ryan's examination of his fears of dying.SPOILERS. The incident that begins the journey into the 'dust factory', a place where you can either jump off the trapeze and get caught, then fly away (die and go to heaven), or fall into the dust pit and return to normal life, is when Ryan falls off a train bridge into the water. When he surfaces and goes home, grandpa is now lucid, and Melanie is there too. But this is not his real world, it is more a purgatory. Grandpa is really incoherent, Melanie we learn later is in a coma, and Ryan is about to drown. When grandpa dies, Ryan and Melanie recover to the real world, where they don't quite remember what happened at the 'dust factory', but seem to know something good has happened.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!"The Dust Factory", a movie written and directed by Eric Small, is a text book example of why most independent films remain independent: they are poor movies. The whole plot of this story is lacking. Two kids (Ryan Kelley & Hayden Panettiere) get trapped in some type of purgatory. However, this paradise hell, as you could call it, happens in the middle of their life!? Even the acting can't save this movie. Hayden Panettiere, the girl who braved it in the classic movie, "Remember the Titans", and the cute, "Raising Helen", is just seen dancing by herself unstop of a lake for half of the entire movie. Ryan Kelley, though brilliant in his own scenes, has no chemistry whatsoever with Ms. Panettiere. Then comes the grandpa of the male role: he is suppose the wise figure of the movie but all he does is walk into closets. However, the worst character in the book, is the villain: the evil circus guy who owns the Dust Factory. He is purely laughable! What are the good things in the movie? Nice scenery, great cinematography & the fact I only had to see this movie only once!