For her sophomore feature film American writer/director Svetlana Cvetko has created an enchanting ménage à trois romance that makes for compelling viewing. Shot in black and white, it is all very reminiscent of a French New Wave flick, except this is very much a Californian/Italian affair.
The three protagonists drift together in L.A. which they all seem to be just passing through. Happy-go-lucky playboy Marcello (Mattia Minasi) has flown in from Italy to ‘take meetings’ to jump start an American career for his father who is famous soap-opera actor back home.
However Marcello much prefers to just hang out on the board walk and take in the rays. It’s there that he meets handsome broody Nassim (Neyssan Falahi) an ex-surfer who has been making a living as a personal trainer, but is now under pressure by his father to return home to Iran and settle down. He is easily persuaded by Marcello to hung out together, and these two drifters very quickly bond.
They are both captivated by Kristine (Cristina Rambaldi) a coffee shop waitress by day, but otherwise an ambitious artist, and photographer by night. She is the catalyst that not just brings the two men together, but is the one that propels them all from a close friendship into a full romance.
Their very existence has been funded by Marcello’s fathers credit cards, but when he discovers this, and the fact that his son has totally abandoned all the ‘meetings he had planned, he cuts Marcello off. If that is not bad enough the young man’s past has finally caught up with him, with his ex girlfriend turning up to inform the family that she is pregnant with Marcello’s baby.
Marcello decides that he has no alternative than to fly home to Italy to sort this out, but as the three of them are by now totally separable, Nassim and Kristine go with him too. They all have this fine sense of love for each other, which is both fresh and innocent. It all evolved so effortlessly and all three enjoy such an electrifying chemistry that they never stop and discuss it at all.
That will change when they all arrive at Marcello’s family’s home and they insist on sharing one bed, but we are already sensing that maybe they are getting restless too.
Cvetko’s main reputation is a Director of Photography and that really shows in the sublime black and white imagery. However it is the pitch perfect performances of her three lead actors that give such an authenticity to their unorthodox relationship which they made feel was both so natural and essential
From Level Forward Virtual Theatrical Release 2/12
Labels: 2021, black and white, menage a trois, nudity, romance
