DON'T MOVE may be the most adult, most thoughtful, most challenging movie I've seen since GODS AND MONSTERS. Sergio Castellito, an actor I only discovered recently in MOSTLY MARTHA, shows an extraordinary affinity for bringing to the screen what must have been an extremely inward and searching story based on the award-winning and bestselling novel by Margaret Mazzantini.
Here we see Timoteo (Castellitto)--a civilized, married doctor, whose life is thrown into turmoil when his fifteen-year-old daughter requires surgery as a result of her injuries in a motorbike accident. While he waits, wondering if his daughter will survive her accident, he sees the vision of a woman in red shoes and short-cropped hair who is dragging a white chair into the middle of the entrance way to his hospital. Despite the fact it's raining, she sits with her back to him. We will later find out this apparition is Italia (Cruz), his mistress. I wasn't sure he was recalling his relationship to this woman, 'Okay, I'll do whatever you say--just let my daughter live." Maybe the possibility of losing his daughter was too close to his relationship with Italia.
Some fifteen years past, Timoteo's car had broken down in a dicey neighborhood of a large Italian city. While waiting for his car to be repaired, he is offered help by a local woman. Cheaply dressed, overly-made up, her posture and walking stance a train wreck of attributes that refuses to mesh, Italia's kindness is violently taken advantage of by the good Doctor. He rapes her in a drunken fit of violence. Appalled by his behavior, Timoteo returns and apologizes, only to find his lust aroused again. This time, Italia responds just as violently to him. As he keeps returning, their couplings give way to passion and eventually to a strong bond of love. It is as if Timoteo is returning to some previously uncivil part of his life because you constantly observe his violent flashes of anger--amazing behavior for a well-educated doctor who moves easily in an upper-class world of professional ease and comfort.
Timoteo's relationship deepens as he shuttles between his life with Italia and his married life with his wife Elsa (Claudia Gerini). Elsa is not eager to have children, despite Timoteo's desire be a father. So he's delighted when Italia tells him she's pregnant. He impulsively decides to tell Elsa the truth about this other woman, but before he can do so, she reveals to him that she too is pregnant.
I'll stop with plot details here. This is not a film about narrative so much as it is about character and Castelitto's mastery of character in what must have been a difficult adaptation is nothing short of superb. This is an astonishingly assured film--only his second directing effort.
Penelope Cruz should depart the U.S. for the kind of work she clearly deserves at home in Europe. Like Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deuneuve, Romy Schneider, and countless other European leading ladies, Cruz's Hollywood efforts have only underlined her lack of comfort acting in English, as well as Hollywood's inability to offer her anything other than the trite and formulaic stuff she's done thus far. Her Italia is a revelation. Changing her look to the point where she is barely recognizable, Cruz convinces that she's a poorly paid seasonal hotel maid. Albanian, and ghettoized for her background, her dark hair is badly dyed blonde at the ends, her blue eye shadow, gaped front teeth, nearly bow-legged gait and cheap attire, truthfully underline her low-life status. Without looking like merely a cosmetically applied bit of movie magic, Cruz harrowingly conveys her familiarity with poverty and abuse. When Timoteo brutally assaults her the first time, you know this is not the first time a man has mistreated her. And you have to wonder what she is thinking and responding to with each visit as she progresses towards a deep and abiding love for Timoteo. This is the kind of performance that people should be buzzing about, and perhaps will bring her the respect that has eluded her in Hollywood so far.
Castellitto is not a conventionally handsome man. His nose and eyes are too big, giving him a nearly comic look. But he's a soulful, and yes, sexy mature man and as the beast in him subsides, we are left with a deeply tortured soul who has attached himself to Italia as intensely as one grabbing for a life raft in a sea storm. I have never seen Claudia Gerini, but as Timoteo's distracted wife, her eyes convey how much she understands that her husband has another life away from her. The rest of the cast is excellent.
This is a movie about a man that whose behavior should repel you. I would love to read the novel from which the book's author and Castellitto have adapted so smoothly. DON'T MOVE is a film of strong emotions and stays with the viewer.
Here we see Timoteo (Castellitto)--a civilized, married doctor, whose life is thrown into turmoil when his fifteen-year-old daughter requires surgery as a result of her injuries in a motorbike accident. While he waits, wondering if his daughter will survive her accident, he sees the vision of a woman in red shoes and short-cropped hair who is dragging a white chair into the middle of the entrance way to his hospital. Despite the fact it's raining, she sits with her back to him. We will later find out this apparition is Italia (Cruz), his mistress. I wasn't sure he was recalling his relationship to this woman, 'Okay, I'll do whatever you say--just let my daughter live." Maybe the possibility of losing his daughter was too close to his relationship with Italia.
Some fifteen years past, Timoteo's car had broken down in a dicey neighborhood of a large Italian city. While waiting for his car to be repaired, he is offered help by a local woman. Cheaply dressed, overly-made up, her posture and walking stance a train wreck of attributes that refuses to mesh, Italia's kindness is violently taken advantage of by the good Doctor. He rapes her in a drunken fit of violence. Appalled by his behavior, Timoteo returns and apologizes, only to find his lust aroused again. This time, Italia responds just as violently to him. As he keeps returning, their couplings give way to passion and eventually to a strong bond of love. It is as if Timoteo is returning to some previously uncivil part of his life because you constantly observe his violent flashes of anger--amazing behavior for a well-educated doctor who moves easily in an upper-class world of professional ease and comfort.
Timoteo's relationship deepens as he shuttles between his life with Italia and his married life with his wife Elsa (Claudia Gerini). Elsa is not eager to have children, despite Timoteo's desire be a father. So he's delighted when Italia tells him she's pregnant. He impulsively decides to tell Elsa the truth about this other woman, but before he can do so, she reveals to him that she too is pregnant.
I'll stop with plot details here. This is not a film about narrative so much as it is about character and Castelitto's mastery of character in what must have been a difficult adaptation is nothing short of superb. This is an astonishingly assured film--only his second directing effort.
Penelope Cruz should depart the U.S. for the kind of work she clearly deserves at home in Europe. Like Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deuneuve, Romy Schneider, and countless other European leading ladies, Cruz's Hollywood efforts have only underlined her lack of comfort acting in English, as well as Hollywood's inability to offer her anything other than the trite and formulaic stuff she's done thus far. Her Italia is a revelation. Changing her look to the point where she is barely recognizable, Cruz convinces that she's a poorly paid seasonal hotel maid. Albanian, and ghettoized for her background, her dark hair is badly dyed blonde at the ends, her blue eye shadow, gaped front teeth, nearly bow-legged gait and cheap attire, truthfully underline her low-life status. Without looking like merely a cosmetically applied bit of movie magic, Cruz harrowingly conveys her familiarity with poverty and abuse. When Timoteo brutally assaults her the first time, you know this is not the first time a man has mistreated her. And you have to wonder what she is thinking and responding to with each visit as she progresses towards a deep and abiding love for Timoteo. This is the kind of performance that people should be buzzing about, and perhaps will bring her the respect that has eluded her in Hollywood so far.
Castellitto is not a conventionally handsome man. His nose and eyes are too big, giving him a nearly comic look. But he's a soulful, and yes, sexy mature man and as the beast in him subsides, we are left with a deeply tortured soul who has attached himself to Italia as intensely as one grabbing for a life raft in a sea storm. I have never seen Claudia Gerini, but as Timoteo's distracted wife, her eyes convey how much she understands that her husband has another life away from her. The rest of the cast is excellent.
This is a movie about a man that whose behavior should repel you. I would love to read the novel from which the book's author and Castellitto have adapted so smoothly. DON'T MOVE is a film of strong emotions and stays with the viewer.