Tre Piani

The narrative revolves around families who live on three floors of the same building, and each family has its subplot. You might even say that each family has its plot and we get three movies, intermingled, for the price of one. In Israel, where the original Three Floors novel comes from, there was even a stage play called The Third Floor that was based on a single one of them.

Although the novel is set in Israel, the plot and characters are reimagined in Rome for the film. There are a dozen characters to keep track of, and it's to the filmmakers' credit that keeping them straight is not a hopeless chore. The characters are interesting and believable, and they certainly go through a lot, but the film doesn't present us with any major character to identify with wholeheartedly. What we get is more like a human tapestry.