Don't Move

The strongest reason for seeing this Italian import is Penelope Cruz: sporting unkempt hair and dressed in drab clothes, the beautiful Spanish actress looks every bit the part of a dowdy, long-suffering rural woman with whom a married surgeon has a long affair after raping her on their first meeting. But Cruz doesn't merely inhabit the role externally, she makes you believe in her character—a woman so brutalized and beaten down by life, so completely devoid of self-worth, that she's willing to give her love to a man who's taken her by force after he returns to apologize. Unfortunately, Cruz can't rescue Don't Move from its soap opera melodrama and pretentious musings on life and love, because she's not really the central figure here: rather, it's the doctor (director Sergio Castellitto), whose inability to be honest with other people—or himself—is the catalyst for the miseries that befall those unlucky enough to fall within his orbit. While the doctor is certainly not portrayed in a simple sympathetic light, he's not brought into full focus either, and this weakness hobbles the picture throughout. Optional. [Note: DVD extras include the 20-minute featurette “Margaret Mazzantini: A Writer's Reflections” on the novelist, 13 minutes of screen tests of costar Penélope Cruz, a five-minute “Backstage” behind-the-scenes featurette, a brief deleted scene, and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for an uneven film.] (F. Swietek)