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26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Penelope Cruz like you've never seen her before..., July 31, 2006
This review is from: Don't Move (DVD)
Don't Move is outrageous and totally unbelievable and its full of unbridled histrionics, but luckily Penelope Cruz's impassioned performance as an unglamorous, multi-ethnic refuge living in Italy saves the day in this awkward and structurally uneven melodrama. This film is all about men and how they cheat on women, and how women are the victims of men and how men end up getting what they want no matter what the cost to women.
Sergio Castellito - also the movie's director - plays wealthy doctor Timoteo. Life seems good as he has a decorous marriage to the loving Elsa (Claudia Gerini), a brittle, ridiculously pretty clotheshorse and a thriving career. One afternoon, on the way to a medical conference, his car breaks down, so he enlists the help of Italia (Cruz), a trashy hotel cleaner.
Their relationship begins on a dreadfully violent note - he brutally rapes her, treating her as an escape valve for his worst fantasies of dominance. But something also begins to draw him back to her. Unashamedly lying to his wife, Timoteo returns again and again to Italia and the two gradually develop something resembling a relationship. When Italia turns up pregnant at the same time as the wife, the drama starts to really over-cook.
Whilst Timoteo flashes back to his affair with Italia, we are also given the parallel story of his teenage daughter teenage daughter (Elena Perino) who lies near death in his hospital after a moped accident. As the surgeon stands vigil and his colleagues try to save the girl, he reflects on whether the tragedy might be karmic settlement for previous misdeeds. Of course, with both Italia and Elsa pregnant, Timoteo is faced with some difficult choices - he feels desperately loyal to his wife, but he's also frantically in love with Italia and admits that he can't live without her.
As flashback is piled on top of flashback, the film ends up having a disjointed and structurally awkward quality, which ends up inhibiting much of the action. The sex is also remarkably devoid of titillation, with the most outrageous scene coming about half way through the film where Italia and Timoteo have rain-soaked and grubby sex in the back of a filthy dark alley - she even gets to keep her red shoes on.
By then the film has sort of worn out it's welcome, and most viewers will probably be tired of all the morbid and somewhat misogynistic histrionics being played out. The problem with this film is Timoteo doesn't imbue much sympathy with the viewer - as an Italian version of a male chauvinist pig, who is perfectly comfortable with being somewhat violent towards women and dogs, and compared to what becomes of Italia, he gets off quite lightly.
Castellito does solid work as the meticulous doctor who spends most of the movie behaving like a jerk and Cruz definitely steal the show as Italia. She gives an earthy, rounded and totally vulnerable performance complete with blowsy makeup, crummy teeth, too-tight skirts, and wild hair -- but she gets you to feel for her character and even understand what makes her tick.
The movie as a whole is just so unfocused and dramatically strained, and the narrative is all over the place. Also, the inclusion of western pop music at certain moments doesn't fit with the story and it's shocking to see how Italia would cling to a man so willing to abuse her - yes, there is a reason she's like this, but that doesn't make it any more realistic that she would let it happen.
Indeed, there are some powerful emotional moments that work well, but for most of the movie you feel like you're being manipulated by blatant and contrived melodramatics. Mike Leonard July 06.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Epic Tale of Obsession and Possession and the Conflicts of Passion, October 7, 2006
This review is from: Don't Move (DVD)
'Non ti muovere' ('Don't Move') requires a lot from its audience - concentration, understanding about the extremes of control versus passion, and a willingness to stay with the nonlinear method of storytelling that novelist Margaret Mazzantini and screenwriter/director/star Sergio Castellitto have elected to use. This may be a little film about a few people, but the exposition of the story feels epic in its proportions (over two hours in length) and in the flamboyance of its production. In the end the demands of the film, in this viewer's mind, reward the viewer handsomely.
The time is the present, a rainy day when a fifteen year old girl experiences a motorbike accident. The victim is immediately transported to the hospital where her head is shaved and she enters neurosurgery in what seems like a futile attempt to save her life. Coincidentally one of the prominent surgeons at the hospital is Timoteo (Sergio Castellitto) and he is informed by a staff nurse Ada (Angela Finocchiaro) that the victim is Timoteo's daughter. Devastated by watching his young child undergo surgery his mind flashes back to the time of her birth, a time when, married to a beautiful but cold woman Elsa (the beautiful and talented Claudia Gerini), he has an affair with a common woman Italia (an extraordinary performance by the gifted Penélope Cruz). Timoteo's usual controlled model surgeon and husband had thrown reason to the wind as he became obsessed with the raw passion of a sexually dominated relationship with the tacky appearing but genuine and emotionally abused Italia. Their relationship may have started with a rape but it develops despite the misgivings of both Timoteo and Italia into a profoundly felt love. Italia becomes pregnant, knowing that Timoteo is married: she is willing to take any part of him she can have as her only other memory of a relationship was an abusive one when her own father raped her as a young girl. Timoteo is conflicted: his wife Elsa becomes pregnant yet he wishes to run away with Italia. The wise but vulnerable Italia aborts her pregnancy and opens the door for the manner in which she works out her history with Timoteo. All of this story Timoteo confesses to his daughter Angela, lying comatose after her surgery. And all of the elements of the story coalesce.
The performances by both Cruz and Castellitto won many awards and well deserved they are. Cruz proves that she is one of the most gifted actresses before the cameras today and it seems a shame that her Italian and Spanish movies acknowledge her gifts while her American movies place her in rather silly roles where her natural beauty seems to be more important.
While this film is not without flaws, the power of becoming involved with the characters is sweepingly forceful. This may not be an easy movie to watch but committing to it intellectually is most rewarding. Grady Harp, October 06
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Burning Love, June 7, 2006
This review is from: Don't Move (DVD)
Dr. Timoteo Rossi (Sergio Castellitto) has the perfect life: a beautiful wife Elsa (the glorious Claudia Gerini), a smart daughter and a medical practice that is the envy of all his friends.
There is only one problem, though he loves his daughter, he's not really in love with Elsa because he can't get Italia (Penelope Cruz) out of his mind, thoughts and even actions. Everything reminds him of Italia and his brief but fervent affair with her.
Castellitto, who also directs here, has fashioned his film with more than a nod towards Roberto Rossellini and the Italian Neo-Realism films of the 1950's: Cruz is even made up to look like a new millennium Sophia Loren. But that is about the only similarity between the two for Cruz has a tenderness and vulnerability as Italia that Loren never had and that Cruz has never, up to this point, exhibited on the screen.
Cruz's Italia is average looking and takes nothing for granted: she is content with having only as much as Timoteo is willing to give her, as she says to him: "I don't care if you come back once a week, once a month or once a year...just come back."
There is a heart-breaking scene close to the end of the film between Italia and Timo that is performed only in close-ups: the camera moving back and forth between the two, which is a textbook treatise on film acting: eyes, face, eyes... that says volumes without any dialogue.
Castellitto, so good as an actor in "Mostly Martha," has directed a film with a master's eye. His scene compositions are beautiful and his astute sensibilities, particularly in the scenes between Timo and Italia, mark him as a director in possession of uncommon grace and a transcendant inner fire that hopefully will stay light for many films to come.
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