Film Review - Three Floors (2021)

At the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Italian director Nanni Moretti won the Palme d’Or for his film The Son’s Room, a film which explored family dynamics amidst a tragedy. Now Moretti has returned with his latest film Three Floors (Tre piani) which does much the same.

Three Floors follows three families living on three different floors of the same Roman apartment building and who are all dealing with their own issues. Judge Vittorio and his wife are attempting to deal with the devastating aftermath of their son Andrea’s drunk driving. Busy, working parents Lucio and Sara regularly leave their daughter with the elderly neighbours across the hall, until one evening ends in their daughter and the old man inexplicably in the woods and Lucio begins to believe that his neighbour has been sexually abusing his daughter. Meanwhile, on the lowest level new mother Monica struggles to raise her daughter with an absent husband who is also engaged in a feud with his brother.

Events begin in 2010 and span the next ten years, though the surroundings are such that the proceedings could be taking place in any year and any time. This timeless setting works in the film’s advantage as the audience is not distracted by anything outside of the three families and their stories. Though the particular issues presented may not be ones that the audience has personally experienced, what is certain is that anyone watching Three Floors will be able to recognise that familial and neighbourly relationships are not always easy and that problems will inevitably arise.

Three Floors is not a particularly easy film to watch. Visually, the film is extremely drab, and the cinematography feels listless which overall makes Three Floors slightly ugly to look at. On the one hand this works well as a metaphor for the sometimes bland and ugly world that the characters find themselves in of perhaps their own design. However, this also gives the film a sort of apathetic quality that makes it hard for the audience to care for these characters. Certain plot points also serve to alienate the audience further, including a statutory rape storyline which is steeped in an irony that is never addressed. It becomes quite difficult to know if Moretti means for all of these elements to be deliberate and again this feels quite alienating.

That being said, there are large parts of Three Floors which are effective. Whilst for the most part the characters are not particularly likeable, they are intriguing. Audiences may not be able to recognise themselves in the personalities of these characters, but they will certainly recognise that no one is guiltless and that we all make mistakes. Three Floors features a talented ensemble cast and the performances are all good.

Whilst Three Floors is a film that often feels as difficult to navigate as the relationships within it, much like ing a car accident it provokes a morbid curiosity that makes it hard to look away.