IslandGuru Who payed the critics

TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Sherazade This movie was quite depressing but also well written and well acted. The subject matter is not for everyone, especially those who are offended by cruelty towards women in real life and on film. But all that aside, if you can stomach it, it's a really good watch. The story centers around Italia(Penelope Cruz) a peasant with a dark secret and the perverted doctor Timoteo(Sergio Castellitto, who also directs) whom she crosses paths with. I've been catching up on Penelope Cruz's earlier work lately and the verdict is that she is one of those rare actresses who can pull off any role. A true actor. She's like the Spanish Kate Winslet.

widescreenguy other than a very beautiful face (which ain't quite so good looking as it once was) that gets her jobs in fashion magazines slathered with makeup, what qualities does Ms Cruz have to get her on the big screen so often? her multilingual ability? maybe thats it. doing films in 4 different languages would increase the number of scripts available.maybe its those perky tits she likes to show off numerous times.this film was a definite disappointment. Im glad the local library has a big selection because if I had rented this one I would demand a refund.it jumps all over the place in location and date, full of surprises ie too much of an average thing, and is way too loaded with symbolism and lacks dialog which EXPLAINS wtf is going on in the film. gee, kinda like how is the viewer supposed to know what the message was in that scene/film if it lacks audio/visual CLUES ????? 'dont move' is said once in the film and has no bearing on the story, so what exactly is the story?

groggo I'm always wary of films that define themselves through flashbacks, and this movie does just that -- roughly 80 per cent of it consists of flashbacks, or flashbacks on flashbacks, and I was halfway through it before I started to realize what was happening.This is a boring, pedestrian film that uses a lot of gorgeous photography to hide its shortcomings.Big problem: although 15 years have elapsed in the flashbacks, Sergio Castellito doesn't seem to change much. He's still dynamic Sergio with a little salt-and-pepper in his hair and beard.Castellito plays a quietly brutish surgeon who, because his mommy was nasty and he ran away from home (or something), turns into a lover of rough-trade sex (this inevitably follows of course: orphans automatically become brutes). One day, he just walks up to Penelope Cruz, rapes her, does it repeatedly over a period of days or weeks, and she eventually falls madly in love with him. This also inevitably happens because, well, women are just basically pretty stupid and are suckers for brutes. And if Castellito and Cruz weren't drawn (tragically of course) to each other, there wouldn't be any reason to make this film. There's a lot of style in this film, but not much substance. A lot of corny silliness too (the ending is laughable). It's basically a soap opera with a very familiar plot. We just KNOW that Cruz' slovenly gypsy girl (with a heart of gold, of course) is courting disaster, and of course Castellito, who also wrote and directed, doesn't let us down.There's a lot of crying in this movie too. When you don't have a really solid story, weeping is sometimes an effective way to gain audience sympathy. You even get to pretend that something profound is going on. There isn't. All in all, considering the heavy cinematic hitters here, this was a big disappointment for me. I just could not suspend my disbelief: Castellito and Cruz surrounded by glitzy cinematography, pretending to be tragic figures. In moody black and white, stripped of self-conscious sentimentality, it might have worked. An argument could be made that Castellito made this film as a showcase for himself. He gets all the great closeups with the killer smile and sorrowful eyes. And despite the attempts to deglamorize Cruz, it doesn't work. She's too much of a celebrity cult figure, and Castellito is no Almodovar, who can make Cruz into a sympathetic non-bombshell and get us to believe it.A bright light was Claudia Gerini as Elsa, Castellito's wife. No one has mentioned her very much, and she deserves better.

D A Emotionally intense movie handled unflinchingly by lead actor Castellitto. This immersive character study into an unfulfilled doctor's love affair is a tad too lengthy and perhaps the director indulges in his on screen action a little too much, but the dedication that the two ill-fated lovers give to portraying the rawness of their emotions and instincts will, despite once in a while misfiring, leave few viewers unfazed. Penelope Cruz is great as the counterpoint, and deserves much respect for assuming such a demanding, unglamorous role at this point in her well established career. Obviously it is the love of acting that propels her(no comparison to her English jobs), as this mildly received Italian film must have been several notches down from her draw, but when you see the psychologically harrowing sex scenes (not always for the sex, but for the right before and right after) you realize why someone would be interested in such intimate work. As the film slightly overextends itself to reach it's climax which sort of dumbs down it's poignant theme, the performances and overall taste left are nonetheless real and life affirming despite all of it's muddied ramifications.