The emotional and tender Italian drama reminds us that the changes in life are worth kissing
A story about a character discovering that they have a final disease and propose to live their lives as they had not done before is a well -traced premise. The screen is correct is a whole different story. Directed by Isabel Coixet, from a script, she co-written with Enrico Audenino, and based on the novel by Michela Murgia, Three farewell (Three bowls in Italian) is not only Marta’s disease (Alba Rohrwacher); This is the end of a relationship, the different reactions it arouses and what we decide to do their lives thereafter.
The film begins with Marta (Alba Rohrwacher), high school teacher, and his partner, Antonio (Elio German), a chief, in the middle of an argument. It looks like the one they have had several times before, only it ends up permanently. Antonio upwards and leaves Marta, who is devastated. For a while, she is a person of a person – she does not go out and refuses the help of her sister. Antonio, meanwhile, plunges his head first into his work. When Marta discovers that she has cancer, she must take a thorough look at her life before the end.
Three farewell is a beautifully told story about the choice of a woman to embrace the changes that have changed her life in one way or another.
This summary does not do Three farewell justice. It is a visceral film that comes to the heart of Marta’s life. We all wondered, at one point or another, what we could have been if we had done something earlier, if we had only decided to leave a relationship that no longer worked. Marta cries her relationship and the end approaching in her life, but she finds that she is in a much happier place than she would have been if she had not received her diagnosis.
This is reflected in the way Marta presents herself, the slight inclination of the head of Rohrwacher, or the way in which her lips straightens up in a semi-semi which expresses his sadness and happiness at the same time. The way she reacts to the dissolution of her relationship with Antonio is very different. It seems well at the beginning, but then, when the story emphasizes how bad it feels and how much it is missing, we realize how the decision affected them two – for the better and the worst.
Three farewells are a love letter to life and self -discovery
Marta begins to see her life as a new start, expressing her feelings to those around him, including a colleague professor (Francesco Carril), freely and with love in her heart. In many ways, Three farewell is a love letter to life as much as on Marta’s self -discovery. She learns to live as she did not do before and embraces the exploration of what she wants and does not do. Here, life is a cool water drink, and Marta is thirsty.
Three farewell is a beautifully told story about the choice of a woman to embrace the changes that have changed her life in one way or another. It is an anchored human story that underlines the idea that what may seem inevitable is not always the worst thing, even if it can feel this at the beginning. Since Murgia died of kidney cancer in 2023 and history is semi-autobiographical, Three farewell is an intimate and moving exploration of a woman about to find what she wants to live in the time she left.
The film could have fallen into cliché rhythms, but Coixet and Audenino manage the story with so much care and reflection. There is an emotional resonance that permeates the film and fills your heart with such strong pain that it is difficult to move away without being affected.
Three farewell First at the Toronto Film Festival in 2025.
