Don't Move (Non ti muovere) is a new film by Italian actor/director Sergio Castellitto. It also stars Spanish actress Penelope Cruz (All About My Mother), who puts in one of the most complex performances of her career.
Don't Move is certainly an impassioned film that covers a lot of ground. Margaret Mazzantini?s novel proves a fertile adaptation for her husband, veteran Italian actor Sergio Castellitto (Mostly Martha), who goes in front of the camera as the film's main star, and behind it as a second time director. He plays Timoteo, a doctor sweltering under the veneer of a wealthy middle class life. When his teenage daughter Elsa (Claudia Gerini) is hit by a car Timoteo has a crisis of conscience. While awaiting her fate at the hospital where he works, he interrogates his life and a previous, violent affair with the impoverished Italia (Penelope Cruz).
Eventually the past intersects with the present and that is when things get really out of control. Don't Move is tough movie to be definitive about and it is sure to divide audiences. It is compelling yet abhorrent, and as we learn, Timoteo is truly a monster, so it is hard to have much sympathy for this character and the mess he has compulsively made for himself.
The film is also stacked with Roman Catholic symbolism and middle class angst which is kind of rife in Italian film at the moment (see Remember Me and The Last Kiss).But that said, it is an interesting, beautifully-made piece, and sometimes the only valid response to a movie like this is to be conflicted about it, as I was.
