Three floors, a 2021 film by Nino Moretti, one of the most respected and recognized Italian directors of our time, finds its starting point in the screenplay written by the same Nanni Moretti in collaboration with Federica Pontremoli and Vala Santella, in Eschol’s novel of the same name, Need. . Another Israeli writer under the sign of perfection.

In 2015, when Three floors saw the light (the novel was also published in Romanian, by the Bucharest publishing house humanized)Eschol Nevo stated that he was inspired by Camus In Shut and with In the air, tonight, one of Phil Collins’ biggest hits. After its film adaptation (the whole action is transferred to Italy, the three families whose dark and intertwined stories are told in the novel live in a luxurious apartment house in the Prati district, one of the most elegant in Rome), I, a professor of French literature, this thought led me to the novel Les Thibault. Roger Martin du Gard’s novel about the river, once famous, but now forgotten. This happened, probably, thanks to the way the same Nino Moretti, an exceptional interpreter of Judge Vittorio, conceives and places his hero on the page. Who, as the father of a troubled boy, Andrea (Alessandro Sperdutti), is far more strict with him than Oscar Thibaut is with his son Jacques. Vittorio feels an almost morbid pleasure in doing justice, obeying the law, going to court, even if there is no need for it. The trauma that this caused his son Andrea as a child explains a lot.

In Moretti’s film, it all starts with Andrea. While driving his car under the influence of alcohol, perhaps even under the influence of drugs, a young man commits a serious accident. Soldier fortunately with only one casualty. Monica, a young pregnant woman (Alba Rohrwacher) who lives on the second floor of the house, miraculously escapes death. Monica is forever waiting for her husband, who is absent from work, and he is constantly and painfully haunted by the fear of imminent Alzheimer’s disease. While the other residents are Lucio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and Sara (Elena Lietti) who occupy the 1st floor, Vittorio (Nanni Moretti) and Dora (a character in which Margherita Bai plays a reference role) who live on the third floor , plus an old man A couple appears in the windows, and then on the street, in whose care Lucio and Sara very often leave their daughter, a child named Francesca. Either out of curiosity, or to lend a hand, or to find out how and if they can help/punish their son.

Their fate for ten years, years during which a lot happens and changes, the fate is of course intertwined with the fate of other characters, some toxic ones like Charlotte (Denise Tantucci), depicted emotionally, and sometimes sensitively, perhaps with an excess of vanilla sugar, but without unnecessary technicalities, in the film by Nanni Moretti. There were voices that accused the director of placing his film in the neighborhood of a telenovela, and there were opinions that defended the way Moretti managed to tell and intertwine the tragic, comic and comical stories of life. A life dominated by loneliness. Which does not take into account any marriage contract.

The relationship of the couple Lucio-Sara gives a crack due to the stubbornness with which the husband tries to clarify the story. Which to others seems more understandable and even more harmful. Vittorio dies, which is Dora’s chance to find her own way and reconcile with Andrea. Monica leaves home, tired of the constant absence of her husband Giorgio (Adriano Giannini) and the terrifying presence of a crow (a bad omen, of course). –

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