Whenever some old fogey whines “they don’t make movie stars like they used to,” just point them in the direction of Penélope Cruz. Thirty years in cinema and she remains a joy, not just for a beauty that classes her with the great screen goddesses, but for serious acting chops and an inner glow that infallibly transmits a penetrating warmth. Were it not for Cruz, Immensity would be a much weaker film, notwithstanding terrific cinematography and an impressive attention to 1970s detail. The problem with Emanuele Crialese’s long-awaited return after eleven years is the utterly predictable script and a sensation that the handling of its gender-questioning young co-protagonist feels dated. Perhaps that seems odd to say given this is a period film, but for a new movie to tackle gender identity, it needs to offer some glimpse into the struggle that’s more than skin deep, and such insight is lacking. Yes, it sets this conflict side-by-side with classic stereotyped male-female roles – neurotic 1970s housewife with no outlet versus emotionally unavailable cheating husband – yet that too offers nothing new. Immensity is still likely to be quite popular, but the enticing enormity of its title, apart from Cruz and Gergely Pohárnok’s rich visuals, is pretty limited.
There are however compensating factors, starting with breakfast in the household of Clara (Cruz) and Felice (Vincenzo Amato), when she gets her three kids ready to face the day by blasting Raffaella Carrà’s classic song “Rumore” and dancing around the dining room as they set the table. We’ve seen Clara shortly before, looking lost and melancholy, but here she’s elated as she energizes her children who join in her moves. Who wouldn’t want this ideal mother? Ah, but no, we already know there’s something missing, some emptiness that can’t be fully assuaged by her three kids Adrianna (Luana Giuliani), known as Adri, Gino (Patrizio Francioni) and Diana (Maria Chiara Goretti).
Adri is also dissatisfied, signaled at the start when she’s on her building’s roof, arms outstretched to the skies as the drone camera goes up and up. With her short hair and baggy clothes, she’d have been called a tomboy in an earlier era, but for Adri, 12-years-old, it goes to the root of how she sees herself. When she leads her siblings through a thicket of reeds across from their home and meets a community of squatters on the other side, she introduces herself as Andrea (the Italian equivalent of Andrew) to pretty Sara (Penelope Nieto Conti). Whether Sara believes she’s a boy or just instinctually understands isn’t clear, but it doesn’t matter: here’s someone who treats Andri as she wants to be treated, not as a white pinafore-wearing girl but a scrappy, sensitive boy (given that the pronoun minefield was decades into the future and she’s not transitioned, she’ll be referred to in this review as “she/her”).
Domestic life hasn’t been good for some time: this is 1970s Italy, when most middle-class women were expected to stay home, take care of the family and look away when their husbands were unfaithful. Clara’s a creative soul yearning for an outlet, and while she’s a demonstrably loving, fun mother, she feels betrayed. Apart from pop music of the era (marvelously integrated), her one way of expressing herself is by joining in her children’s games, notwithstanding the disapproving gazes of her husband’s family who feel she’s not behaving in a suitably adult manner. Felice (all stereotype and no depth) has zero sympathy for her dissatisfaction; he married this Spanish beauty to be a Stepford wife, and in his eyes she has nothing to complain about.
Running parallel stories of these two frustrated souls – mother needing affirmation, daughter knowing she’s a boy in a girl’s body – could have played well in tandem, yet the links are superficial and don’t reveal anything especially deep about cisgender constructs. Adri’s at the age when puberty has come in (she bathes with a t-shirt and won’t let anyone see her body), but also when young teens begin to look at their parents as potentially vulnerable figures, and she turns a penetrating gaze on her mother, awed by her beauty while conscious for the first time of its limits. Presumably we’re meant to extrapolate that Adri is questioning traditional male-female roles, though by the film’s end she’s reached a stage where she realizes she can’t help Carla come out of a very dark place.
Crialese is at his best when showing how Carla grasps hold of music as a way of expressing all her energies, linking her even closer with her children. We see that in the initial dance sequence and then again in a terrific b&w recreation of Adriano Celentano and Raffaela Carrà’s 1974 variety show staging of the proto-rap hit “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” here cleverly using a transformed modern church as the stage with Cruz sporting a Carrà blonde wig, uncannily capturing not just the moves but the energy of one of Italy’s most iconic singers (she also recreates Patty Pravo’s Italianized “Where Do I Begin”). These are the moments when Immensity transcends the limitations of its predictable script, not as campy imitation but perceptive nod to how such performances at the time offered glimpses into adrenaline-filled possibilities of a more liberated future.
The director’s deservedly celebrated attention to framing and visuals is beautifully realized in collaboration with d.o.p. Gergely Pohárnok, and there are several stand-out set pieces apart even from the song recreations, most notably a truly lovely, resonant scene where Carla and her sisters-in-law are set against the sun on a lawn by the sea, looking for their children who’ve hidden in an underground bunker. Production designer Dimitri Capuani and costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini really nail the period, finally making it look natural and genuine rather than a later imagining of a decade usually seen as either uniformly brown or awash in ugly clashing patterns.
Director: Emanuele Crialese
Screenplay: Emanuele Crialese, Francesca Manieri, Vittorio Moroni
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani, Vincenzo Amato, Patrizio Francioni, Maria Chiara Goretti, Penelope Nieto Conti, Alvia Reale, India Santella, Mariangela Granelli, Carlo Gallo, Rita De Donato, Valentina Cenni, Ilaria Giannatiempo, Elena Arvigo, Francesco Casisa, Filippo Pucillo, Marilena Anniballi, Elisabetta De Vito
Producers: Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Gangarossa
Co-producers: Dimitri Rassam, Ardavan Safaee
Executive producer: Olivia Sleiter
Cinematography: Gergely Pohárnok
Production designer: Dimitri Capuani
Costume designer: Massimo Cantini Parrini
Editing: Clelio Benevento
Music: Rauelsson
Sound: Pierre-Yves Lavoué
Production companies: Wildside (Italy), Warner Bros. Entertainment Italia (Italy), Chapter 2 (France), Pathé (France), France 3 Cinéma (France)
World sales: Pathé International
Venue: Venice Film Festival (competing)
In Italian, Spanish
97 minutes
