Don't Move

Don't Move | |
| Director: | Sergio Castellitto |
| Cast: | Penelope Cruz, Sergio Castellitto, Claudia Gerini |
| Genre: | Drama |
This aggravating Italian abomination, a sub-soap-opera-level romance masquerading as an art film, manages to register as simultaneously offensive and soporific. Successful surgeon Timoteo (Sergio Castellitto, who also directed) breaks down in a small town, where he encounters the impoverished Italia (Penélope Cruz, here rivaling Tammy Faye Baker for garish makeup smears). When Italia offers Timoteo such services as directing him to a mechanic and welcoming him into her home to make a phone call, he responds to her kindness by raping her. He soon returns, again for violent sex, although this time he leaves some money afterward. One would think from Don’t Move’s beginning that the film was headed for a sinister, critical exploration of the dark side of human sexuality, but no, its initial violation quickly forgotten, it plays out as a conventional, painfully dreary romance. That Castellitto seems to want audiences to remain sympathetic to his protagonist—a rich asshole who coercively converts a needy woman from rape victim to whore to mistress—can only reflect poorly upon him. His cartoonish, clueless portrayal of how working-class people look, live, and interact simply seals the deal.