Tom Tykwer's 3 does for threesomes what good love stories do for twosomes

If you haven't figured it out already, TrustMovies has a soft spot for three-somes. (He loved, as you know, the Spanish film 3some, and he may have been the only viewer to have imagined that Anne Fontaine's dark Dry Cleaning was going to turn into some kind of happy-ending menage a trois.) Yes, he's tried a few of these during his lifetime, but no, they never stuck. And so he figured that, hey, most twosomes are difficult enough to maintain over time, so why should a threesome work any easier. Still, one lives in hope. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (shown below) also, I suspect, lives in hope. He has evidently been thinking about all this, and has come up with a movie -- 3 --  that posits the question of why and how and if at all, and then answers it with humor, feeling, intelligence, pizzazz.... and maybe just a tad too much Utopia for some of us.

Still, I wouldn't have missed this very sexy and very interesting movie. I've enjoyed all of Tykwer's work, beginning with Winter Sleepers, and continuing through this new one that offers us a 40-ish couple (below: Sophie Rois at right and Sebastian Schipper, left), he recovering from cancer, she alternating between helpmeet and frustration.  The third wheel is introduced early on, and he finds himself attracted separately and pretty much equally to both parties -- though, because of the manner in which he has met them, he has no idea that they are connected.

Interestingly enough, Herr Tykwer would be just about the same age as his protagonists. He's certainly every bit as attractive as they are, and, I suspect as intelligent and open-minded, too. If this is a case of the creator being very close indeed to his creations, for the most part this works surprisingly well. As writer/director, Tykwer knows these people: what they think and feel, say and do; what they eat and the outdoor (and indoor) sports they love best. He knows their occupations, too, and the friends with whom they mix, and especially perhaps the city in which they live: Berlin has seldom seemed more manageable and "un-touristy" as it does here.

From the swimming pool that brings our guys together to the scientific seminar that unites our gal and guy, the places and people involved seem believable and generally winning. As he is wont to do in a number of his films, Tykwer introduces "ideas" in the form of words and images that complement the story and characters. I generally enjoyed these flights of fancy but admit that they might grate on some viewers as too showy.

The back-story for Mr. Third Party (Devid Streisow, above, left) is introduced slowly and late in the film but it works well and deepens both the character and the tale itself. I don't want to talk much more about plot because part of the film's fun is seeing how and why things develop in the manner that they do. Thanks to the combination of the filmmaker's smart visual eye and keen intelligence, we're treated to a very sophisticated and charming romantic comedy that cannot help, like it or not, expand your sense of possibilities.

My earlier remark about Utopia comes only from the idea that when passion wanes a bit, someone looks elsewhere and while two can turn into three, what's to stop the whole thing beginning again down the road, when three turns into four?  Or maybe divides easily back into the more conventional two and two?  Just wondering...

3, from Strand Releasing, made its New York debut as part of the German festival at MoMA earlier this past summer, and will open theatrically this Friday, September 16, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and in California in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, in Pasadena at Laemmle’s Playhouse 7,and in Irvine at Edwards' University Town Center 6.