Three Floors (Tre piani)

Nanni Moretti is no stranger to Cannes. His film The Son’s Room won the Palme d’Or in 2001 and he served as president of the jury in 2012. This year he brings drama-comedy Three Floors (Tre piani), a film about the residents of a three-storey building in Rome. The first resident introduced is Monica (Alba Rohrwacher) a new mother whose husband is constantly away at work. As she struggles with parenthood – and the fear that her mother’s mental illness will be passed on to her now that she has given birth – her married neighbours Dora (Margherita Buy) and Vittorio (Moretti himself), two judges, must grapple with their son Andrea (Alessandro Sperduti) who drunkenly crashed their car into the building, hitting and killing a woman in the process.

On the bottom floor, parents Lucio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and Sara (Elena Lietti) of nine-year-old Francesca fear their ageing neighbour Renato (Paolo Graziosi) – who babysits their daughter and demands kisses – has interfered with her when they find them lost in a park. The story jumps five years and then another five as the families deal with rape accusations, prison, fallings-out and death. Dora tries to rekindle her relationship with Andrea after he is released from prison and must face up to her mistakes as a parent and Monica grows lonelier and more afraid of her loss of mental stability.

This isn’t awful but it isn’t great either. It’s a comedy-drama and the incorporation of themes such paedophilia and rape doesn’t sit right with the tone of the story. It handles its other subjects well and Margherita Buy plays with such ease the mother and wife caught between the two men she loves. Scamarcio offers brilliant comedic timing, too. Three Floors is screening in competition this year but it does not look like Moretti will have another victory as there are better films in the same category. It strives to be an Italian Woody Allen or Richard Curtis but doesn’t have the charm or the sharp dialogue, making it an unmemorable and generic drama-somewhat-comedy. 

Emma Kiely

Three Floors (Tre Piani) does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival 2021 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Three Floors (Tre Piani) here: