Like Charlize Theron in "Monster" and Nicole Kidman in "The Hours" actress Penelope Cruz side steps her natural beauty and keeps her earthy charm to a minimum in order to give a very strong and an equally complex performance. It's about time that someone finally gave her a role to sink her teeth in and hopefully this will mean that she'll think twice about those big paychecks in mediocre Hollywood junk and instead look at working more in films in Europe. Story here is about a surgeon named Timoteo (Sergio Castellitto) who finds his daughter Angela (Elena Perino) fighting for her life with a head injury after a motorcycle accident and while he waits for her diagnosis he remembers the affair he had with another woman.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** Timoteo was stranded out in the country one day with his car broke down when he meets a poor woman named Italia (Cruz) who allows him to come over to her hovel to use the phone but he's a little drunk and ends up raping her. He returns days later to try and apologize and much to his surprise she's receptive to him and eventually they embark on a torrid affair that could spell the end of his marriage. Italia is Albanian and has a dark past and she makes ends meet by working as a hotel maid and while their relationship starts out roughly it ends with them being deeply in love with each other.
This is directed by actor Sergio Castellitto (Timoteo in the film) and the script comes from the novel by Margaret Mazzantini who happens to be Castellitto's wife. I'm not one of those who thought this was a great film because without the performance by Cruz this would come across as pretty tedious and at 2 hours and 10 minutes this was an effort that definitely needed some editing. Did we really need to see the scene where Timoteo's daughter starts crying about not practicing judo anymore? Cruz is a big international star and after shining pretty well in her early efforts in Spain it took this long before she was able to tackle a solid role again after appearing in mostly disappointing American films. With her bony knees and badly dyed hair Cruz gives the screen a character that's both pathetic and fascinating to watch and she keeps viewers interested by letting out small bits of information about herself through the duration of the films length. I'm not sure audiences (American or European) have her seen Cruz in this light before and she does it believably by never allowing her character to go over the top with how poor she is or how desperate she may be. Cruz deserves to work in better films and I do hope that other directors take notice with her solid performance but lets face it, she's probably going to have to start working more in Europe to find them.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** Timoteo was stranded out in the country one day with his car broke down when he meets a poor woman named Italia (Cruz) who allows him to come over to her hovel to use the phone but he's a little drunk and ends up raping her. He returns days later to try and apologize and much to his surprise she's receptive to him and eventually they embark on a torrid affair that could spell the end of his marriage. Italia is Albanian and has a dark past and she makes ends meet by working as a hotel maid and while their relationship starts out roughly it ends with them being deeply in love with each other.
This is directed by actor Sergio Castellitto (Timoteo in the film) and the script comes from the novel by Margaret Mazzantini who happens to be Castellitto's wife. I'm not one of those who thought this was a great film because without the performance by Cruz this would come across as pretty tedious and at 2 hours and 10 minutes this was an effort that definitely needed some editing. Did we really need to see the scene where Timoteo's daughter starts crying about not practicing judo anymore? Cruz is a big international star and after shining pretty well in her early efforts in Spain it took this long before she was able to tackle a solid role again after appearing in mostly disappointing American films. With her bony knees and badly dyed hair Cruz gives the screen a character that's both pathetic and fascinating to watch and she keeps viewers interested by letting out small bits of information about herself through the duration of the films length. I'm not sure audiences (American or European) have her seen Cruz in this light before and she does it believably by never allowing her character to go over the top with how poor she is or how desperate she may be. Cruz deserves to work in better films and I do hope that other directors take notice with her solid performance but lets face it, she's probably going to have to start working more in Europe to find them.