‘L’Immensità’ Review: Penélope Cruz Is Unable to Salvage Middling Italian Drama [Venice]

What a knotty task, to detach instinctive overtures of motherly love from the traditional structures that perpetuate the restraining of gender roles, offering love freely without conforming. It is a balance beautifully communicated by the way Penélope Cruz pats the back of a child — the physical motion of her comforting hand an unlikely companion to a woman whose mind wanders through the mechanisms of sexist politics, raspily utters words of fierce protection and is unwilling to divorce herself from carnal sensuality while caring for the fruit of consummation. 

Alas, this is not “Parallel Mothers,” Pedro Almodóvar’s searing examination of the scars of Francoism and the political force of motherhood. In Emanuele Criese’s “L’Immensità” (literally translated as “Immensity”), Cruz is once again faced with portraying a mother whose loving relationship with her children acts as both balm and aggravator of a sense of social displacement. Here, Cruz is Clara Borghetti, a mother of three and wife of Felice (Vincenzo Amato), a physically and emotionally abusive husband to whom she remains married out of need.  

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The oldest of the three children is Adriana (Luana Giuliani), who sees the family’s recent move to a freshly built apartment in a new neighborhood as an opportunity to start presenting themself according to their gender identity. This being the ultra-Catholic city of Rome in the 1970s, conversations around the subject are an alien notion, an extra-terrestrial metaphor employed often by Andreas — Adriana’s chosen name — to refer to the isolating nature of their dysmorphia. Whereas Clara’s treatment of Andreas denies their gender through passive disavowing, Felice resorts to violence. “I’m the only normal person in this house”, he roars, normality the good old crutch of the hypocrite conservative who lives in sin but preaches morals. 

In a quest to embody masculinity, Andreas gradually assimilates their father’s rage, the only reference available at home. When Felice lifts a finger or raises his voice against his wife, Andreas bursts in anger, the body that causes distress the same one that ensures momentary safety. Protecting their mother comes out of a natural attachment, but also out of this very need of mirroring established gender roles. The only sense of masculinity known to Andreas is the figure of the macho, the emotionally numb and physically proud provider. 

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Andreas’ journey of self-discovery is deeply personal to Criese, a trans man himself. “I don’t have memories where I was ever perceived differently than I am. So there is no choice about it,” said the director on how his experience shaped the character. It is a shame, then, to see “L’Immensità” dilute the most interesting aspects of its story through a middling attempt to tackle more issues than it is able to competently sustain. Cruz’s often overpowering performance casts a feckless shadow on the point Criese so laboriously tries to make, with artifices such as nostalgia-induced black and white musical sequences stitched through family quarrels — a visual aid that adds very little to the already overexposed relationship between mother and child. 

As plot points pile over one another, “L’Immensità” brings to mind Coco Chanel’s infamous piece of advice: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off”. If the same line of thought had been applied here, perhaps the narrative would have been unclogged, granting Criese the breathing room needed to explore the depth of the questions at hand. As it is, the enormity of these feelings is trapped, lingering unexplored with nowhere to go, and the frustration felt as a viewer eventually gives way to disengagement. 

Fleeting patches of inspiration lie in the sparse moments where Criese allows the camera — and the story — to quieten. Two young people walk through a cornfield, the lanky stalks of growing plants obscuring some things and illuminating others. They make a bed out of a beaten rug, a promise out of a single red rose, love found through unwavering acceptance. A dinner table is made playground through the beats of a song sung in unison, beauty built from the comforting routine of domesticity. Yet these precious snippets, as dear as they are, remain nothing but a frail doorstop, well-meaning but ultimately unable to hold the weight of the closing hatch. [C-]

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