Don't Move

When his daughter is left in a coma after a road accident and doctors battle to save her, surgeon Castellitto reflects on a life of love and tragedy in this Italian male fantasy, which is under the mistaken impression it’s a meaningful melodrama. Perhaps cultural values got lost in translation, but as Castellitto takes out his middle-class self-loathing by raping Penélope Cruz’s dirt-poor, symbolically named Italia, and treating his bourgeois bitch wife (Claudia Gernini) with contempt, we’re meant to be impressed by how complicated and sensitive he is for showing a flicker of conscience. Castellitto won Italy’s top acting prize for furrowing his brow with requisite intensity, while Cruz was similarly rewarded for slipping in buck teeth, dressing down and being grateful for his seigneurial attention. Castellitto’s showy direction demonstrates little sympathy for the women, all but drooling over the exposed form of the protagonist’s injured teenage daughter as she’s prepared for surgery. A perplexingly unedifying affair.