Don't Move (2004)

Adapted from the best-selling novel by margaret mazzantini this is a dramatic and emotional story of a love affair between two desperate people. Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 05/08/2007 Starring: Penelope Cruz Claudia Gerini Run time: 125 minutes Product Description

Instant Classic

Ms Cruz has done some excellent work (e.g., Captain Corelli's Mandolin), but I think this is her best. A wonderful film!

Correction: She did not return to her "Italian roots" to make this film; she's Spanish, and had to learn Italian for the film. Also, in this film, she's supposed to look "awful"; it's part of the character. November 23, 2007

Brilliant and haunting performance by Penelope Cruz

Timoteo (Sergio Castellitto, who also directed) is a surgeon whose car breaks down in a working class neighborhood of a great Italian city. Italia (Penelope Cruz) is a denizen of this part of town who lets Timoteo use her phone. She works as a cleaner of hotel rooms. She is crude, a little desperate, uneducated and so passive that she more or less allows Timoteo to rape her, a rape that she experiences without emotion, as something that society perhaps has taught her to accept as her due. Timoteo comes back a day or two later to apologize. He says he was drunk. He had drunk two vials of cold vodka while waiting for a mechanic to fix his car.

Italia sniffs at this privileged man who took advantage of her. There is nothing she can do. Her word against his. Just move on and forget it. But part of her is wondering if there is more to his interest than the quick gratification of lust.

He takes her again, this time though, it is clear that his passion is especially for her. It is something about her that turns him into a sexual beast, and not just the fact that she is a woman who cannot complain. It is interesting to note that when he returns and catches her carrying groceries home, she looks at him with some inquiry on her face, nothing more, no anger, no recriminations, no judgments. When he apologizes and says he was drunk, she swiftly picks up her groceries and turns away. She was looking for something deeper from him. She wants the reason that he raped her to be NOT that he was drunk but that he was so drawn to her that he couldn't help himself.

It is during the third scene a few days later that she accepts his passion for her and finds some of her own. And it is after this third scene as she serves him spaghetti that he realizes that he loves her. The moment comes when he reaches for the bottle of beer on the table at the same time she reaches to pour it for him. They accidentally tip the bottle over, spilling the beer onto the table and floor, and their hands meet. He holds her index finger in his hand for a moment, and it is at that moment that he knows he loves her. And she sees it in his eyes.

All of this is shown in flashback as Timoteo awaits the fate of his daughter who has suffered a massive head injury from a motorcycle accident and lies in a coma in his hospital. His meeting with Italia took place some fifteen years previously, or I should say it was a relatively brief but ultra passionate love affair that ended fifteen years in the past at the time his daughter, from the womb of his wife, Elsa (Claudia Gerini), was born. It was his passion for Italia that spilled over into Elsa that brought about the conception. Ironically--and this is part of the terrible tragedy of this story--Italia too becomes pregnant at nearly the same time. What Timoteo does not realize until it is too late is the depth of feeling that Italia comes to have for him. This is a love affair that, to quote the words of LA Times film critic Kevin Thomas, "makes most of today's screen romances seem undernourished by comparison."

Penelope Cruz's performance is nothing short of spectacular. I invite the reader to view the special feature on the DVD in which she discusses her character with Castellitto. Here we can see the incredible passion and attention to detail that Cruz brings to her performance, and also that of Castellitto, who is outstanding both as an actor and a director. Cruz, whose first language is Spanish, must become this noble wretch of a desperate woman who must speak Italian with a street accent and behave in way that belies her great beauty and the fine finish of her own character. It is a shame that most Americans only know Cruz from some television commercials and being Tom Cruise's ex. Penelope Cruz is without question--and she proves it in this deeply moving performance--to be one of the finest actresses working today.

A couple of other points. Elsa knows of course that her husband had fallen in love with someone else. She can sense it in the new passion he brings to making love to her. She can deduce it in his absences from her and from the change in his manner. But she never says a word. That is interesting. Perhaps she knows it will pass. And it does, but not before Timoteo performs a "marriage ceremony" at a hotel restaurant near the place of Italia's birth with Italia, and with the "reheated soup" and the wine and cheese as witnesses, and not before he fantasizes aloud with her of leaving his wife and newborn child and going to some far off place with her alone. Only tragedy, it would appear, prevents his leaving Elsa for the love of his life.

But time does heal this wound to their marriage, as Timoteo prays that time will heal his daughter. And the passion of yesteryear perhaps is the more glorious because, like a portrait, it does not age. And perhaps there is some solace in knowing that the love that one finds in a wife and a life's companion is different than that found in a fiery mania of long ago, but taken in total, no less deeply felt. August 8, 2007

Unconditional Love

The movie started with the daughter of a doctor being sent to a hospital for emergency surgery. Akin to people with near death experience where they saw flashbacks, he went through the same ordeal. Then, we were introduced to Italia (Penelope Cruz), a kind-hearted Albanian who he raped in the heat of summer & under influence of alcohol. Somehow, the doctor returned to her again & again. The sex was always rough & overpowering. As it progressed, we were shown of the doctor's childhood where he was powerless over the breakup of his parent's marriage. Despite that he's married to a beautiful and intelligent wife, it was pretty much a loveless marriage where she refused to have a child with him. Over time, a sense of frustration & rage were built up within him & perhaps, Italia was where he could vent his resentment. Italia never expected anything out of him & as time progressed, he started to fall for her. Just as when he was about to leave his wife for her, a twist of event prevented that from happening. As a result, Italia did something unthinkable that would bring this movie to its fruitful conclusion. This is a moving movie which in the end, we would feel compassion for two main characters, who were shaped by their early life circumstances. An engaging love story of a different kind that shall not be missed. July 21, 2007

The things of life!

The doubtful attitude toward life of a sucessful doctor who really wants to enjoy the best of both worlds. A love affair behind stages and the perfect moralist with a beautiful wife is the real point to discuss and to analyze in this brilliant film, supported by a solid script and a tremendous cast.

Penelope Cruz is magnificent as the second on board, she really was absolutely commited with her role as the lover who never asks until she decides to make a stop in the road.

The picture is brillianty depicted through a smart narrative elipsis, in which past and present; life and death are unavoidable joined.

Magnficent shots and an original proposal conform a worthy to see film.
July 11, 2007

Powerful, Charged of emotions

This is a great movie, charged of Erotism, Violence and love, breathtaking, wonderful acting and story, Penelope Cruz is superb in this role, I think this is one of her best performances,As expected , Italian movies are so real and full of sensations that goes from pain to pleasure,violence to love, death and life, wonderful! May 29, 2007

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