A beautiful female star sacrificing her looks for a part is like holding up a yellow sign that says: Caution, Actor at Work. In the Italian melodrama Don't Move, Penélope Cruz hits herself with the ugly stick to play a gat-toothed small-town slattern who becomes the object of a carnal obsession by a bourgeois doctor. He is played by Sergio Castellitto, who also wrote and directed this adaptation of a novel by Margaret Mazzantini. Though Don't Move is frequently repellent for its sexism and stylistic excess, Cruz and Castellitto's performances energize the movie's exploration of some dark and mucky emotional terrain.

Timoteo, the not-so-good doctor, reflects on his stormy relationship with Cruz's character, Italia, while his 15-year-old daughter is in surgery after a scooter accident. As the life of Timoteo's daughter hangs in the balance, flashbacks detail a long-ago affair that began with him raping Italia not once but twice. That's just one indication of Don't Move's overblown machismo, a quality that mars many Italian film exports. Evidently feeling trapped by social expectations in his professional and personal lives, Timoteo is such a sour, hateful asshole in the film's early scenes -- besides raping Italia, he kicks his mother-in-law's dog -- it's hard to care about his transformation when his feelings toward Italia become more tender.

Yet both characters deepen in complexity as the film progresses, such that the sometimes crass displays of tawdriness and brutality take on greater weight. Though Cruz is never entirely plausible as the trod-upon Italia, she digs into the role with admirable tenacity. As for Castellitto, he fires on all cylinders both as performer and director. He may wear out many viewers in the process but at least there's nothing timid about his endeavour.

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