Penelope Cruz Plays "Ugly"

"Don't Move", a movie by Italian director/actor Sergio Castellitto and starring Penelope Cruz in the role of a slightly retarded and vulnerable Italo-Albanian woman, opened in cinemas across Italy on Friday.

The film, about a surgeon haunted by an unconfessable love affair in his past and whose daughter suffers a terrible motorbike accident, has been well received by critics.

One such critic, writing for Screendaily.com, says "Don't Move" may well end up competing as the next Italian entry for the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film.

The Spanish-born beauty plays Italia, a woman of Albanian descent, who is raped by Timoteo (Castellitto). After her initial shock, Italia ends up living a passionate and tempestuous love affair with Timoteo.

Unlike in other movies in which she has starred, Cruz has relinquished her looks, courtesy of some badly applied mascara and ugly clothes that transforms her into a highly credible social outcast.

In a recent press conference, Castellitto went as far as comparing Cruz's performance to that of Giulietta Masina in Federico Fellini's classic movie, La Strada.