The Dust Factory

Although one can admire the idea behind writer-director Eric Small's The Dust Factory, a film aimed at younger audiences that addresses the fear of death, the end result turns out to be as drab and dreary as the title suggests. After nearly drowning in an accident, a teenager finds himself in a sort of limbo where those suffering near-death experiences must decide to take a literal leap of faith that will lead them either to the afterlife or back to everyday reality (the setting is a circus ring, where the waiting have to leap from a high platform into the hands of a trapeze artist--if successful, they move on to a higher level of being; if not, they return to earthly life). In this bizarre but comforting place the boy finds both his grandfather, afflicted with advanced Alzheimer's back home, and Melanie, a young girl in a coma, and the crux of the story revolves around whether the trio will choose to ascend the trapeze, or remain permanently in the semi-happy, semi-depressed stasis of what's called the dust factory. The cast--Ryan Kelley, Hayden Panettiere, and Armin Mueller-Stahl--bring conviction to this high-minded material, but the ideas are just not conveyed effectively, with the result that children are likely to be bored by the leaden pace and phantasmagorical elements that are less entrancing than weird, while adults are likely to be amazed that so odd a project made it to the screen at all. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a three-minute "making-of" featurette, two minutes of deleted scenes, the music video “Someone Like You” by costar Hayden Panettiere and The SmashUp lead singer Watt White, and trailers. Bottom line: a skimpy extras package for a forgettable film.] (F. Swietek)