Presented at Cannes, *Tre Piani* is the latest film by Nanni Moretti inspired by the Israeli novel of the same title by Eshkol Nevo. The film features four families living in the same building whose destinies intertwine and intersect.
It all starts with a tragic accident. On an apparently quiet night, the son of the first family runs over a woman in front of the building, under the eyes of the mother of the second family and ends up crashing into the wall of the ground-floor apartment office of the third family. This third family relies on their next-door neighbors, the fourth and last family, to take care of their only daughter until things calm down.
The film then unfolds the consequences of this accident through several parallel storylines, each stemming from that night’s events.
The narratives alternate and intertwine with great subtlety to gradually raise deeper questions: the balance of a couple whose husband is frequently absent, the conflicting relationship between a father and his son and a mother caught in between, the issue of adultery, or the sexual abuse of minors.
Thus, the director succeeds in his aim of portraying the life of this building over about fifteen years, as if every building in Rome concealed such intrigues. In short, although very pessimistic about social relations in many ways, *Tre Piani* provides a very clear idea of the challenges involved in starting a family.
