So much average

Sadly Over-hyped

Pretty Good

Crappy film

Penelope Cruz is an OK actress but most of her performances in Hollywood's movies were terrible .. and possibly all of her performances in English .. I particularly don't like her accent .. she is a beautiful woman though. I've seen her Spanish movies before she went to Hollywood and she was good .. maybe acting in English comes unnatural so she doesn't give any good performances .. anyway, she is not an Italian but apparently she speaks the language fluently.The movie is good in general and probably the best Italian movie of 2004. Her performance in the movie was very good and it was her best in my opinion (so far) .. she plays a desperate Italian woman in a natural-realistic way that you would think she has some Italian roots and maybe she dose, who knows?!Penelope Cruz was a perfect choice for that particular complicated role .. she empowered the movie with her amazing performance.Claudia Gerini was good but comparing to Cruz she is nothing .. Sergio Castellitto was good in the leading male role.The movie is deep and poetic .. it makes you value the family even more.Penelope Cruz is enough reason to watch the movie.

This film has tone of emptiness, you feel you are floating inside of the main character, how he felt the life, those daily agitation, consumed feeling, anxiety and loneness at the same time. When his most unexpected time, at his mid-life crisis, he encounter a woman on the road, not quite attractive more frankly quite ugly, uneducated, lower class woman in Spain. As he forced her sex, he just passed the point of no return. His soul are starting to suffer from guilt, desire and denial. And he is starting to realize his life was vain as his fake identity simply known as surgeon, but he never been himself until just now.There is nothing new as far as romance goes, they are having an affair, fell in love, declare each others, then the tragic begins.What is extra ordinary about the film is, it is a love story from the male side, not from voice from female, its full of masculine and energy of male imagination. There are deep frustrations of modern day male, from what the society is pushing, and its hand-cupped male expectation,the pressure and revolt.The film denies all the traditional beauties what ordinary Hollywood love story offer in traditional grammar. There is no beautiful couple, they are all too real, they have ordinary body and soul, there is no "Titanic' or "Romeo & Juliette" style sacrifice, they are all too cruel to be lover as we are in real life. Also there is no scene that forcing you to cry.But this film will make you weep, not cry from eyes, but from the heart. It denies all the values what ordinary people would die for, fidelity, beauty and vanity, and in the end, it recovers the truth, that the love is real, no matter how it is tragic or sinful, it simply exists.Penelope is simply brilliant for the role, she shines every minutes in the film. If you have experienced or never experienced 'real' love, see this film, it will let you crave. for the truth.A crucified love story to save your soul.

Sergio Castellito directed and played the leading role as Timoteo, a surgeon of repute in a big Italian hospital . Timiteo had a beautiful wife, a well-paid job and an exceptional home by the sea, but unfortunately the man's brains were between his legs. How else could he risk everything for a waif he raped in a rundown part of the town? For me the character was beyond belief. And as for Italia the victim (Penelepe Cruz), poor she might be but the make-up artists really did make a mess of her face when attempting to give her a pitiful emaciated expression. Even a poverty stricken person can find a plastic comb to comb her hair.Although I am critical of the script, the acting was great. Timoteo with his hidden secret of irresistible attraction towards Italia tried to cover up his back street sexual conquests with lies about urgent work at the hospital. His wife Elsa (Claudia Gerini) seemed aware that something was going on. Her expressive eyes said a lot as she questioned her husband about the hospital, the conference and the quality of his bedroom at the venue.The blossoming of love between Timoteo and his lover was too much for me to accept. Italia with a new wardrobe and complete makeover became a most beautiful woman. There was a suggestion of "Pygmalion" here.I object to these urinary scenes which seem to have crept into films in the last decade. Are they used to add a touch of realism or what? In one scene Timoteo opens his fly and sprays the balcony window boxes. In another scene Elsa goes to the bathroom leaving the door open and we see her seated and then drying herself with a toilet tissue. Let's have some privacy please! Editing room please note! On the credit side there is some excellent photography. The shot from above the street where the accident occurred and the many scenes of incessant rain were great. As for the woman seated on a chair in the rain and observed by Timoteo from his window, this really puzzled me. May be it was a figment of Timoteo's imagination.Cheating on partners is by no means a new theme in films. One tends therefore to make comparisons. In my opinion I preferred "Unfaithful" in which a housewife adds excitement to her life with secretive visits to a handsome bookseller. "Unfaithful" was a better script in my opinion.

'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