“Most Normal People Avoid Nevada.”

Movie Review: Dust Devil

A hauntingly beautiful desert odyssey based on the best-selling novella by Ann James

Book cover art and movie poster created by Don Logan on Scribophile.

If there was ever a book that seemed impossible to adapt into a film, Ann James’ Dust Devil would be at the top of the list. A collection of fragmented desert tales — blending folklore, sci-fi, and stark human drama — seemed more suited to the quiet solitude of reading than the grandeur of cinema. Yet, against all odds, Dust Devil: The Movie has arrived, and it’s nothing short of mesmerizing.

Much like its literary counterpart, Dust Devil isn’t your typical three-act film. Instead, it drifts like sand in the wind, unfolding as a series of interwoven vignettes, capturing the lives of drifters, dreamers, and desert ghosts.

There’s the ageing cowboy searching for meaning in an abandoned town, the waitress at a forgotten diner who serves coffee to travellers that may or may not be real, and the mysterious figure known only as The Dust Devil, who appears when the wind howls just right.

Each story is its own universe, yet they connect in ways that only become clear in the film’s final moments. It’s a slow burn — hypnotic and surreal like No Country for Old Men met Twin Peaks in a sandstorm.