Three wives – Tre mogli

A lighter look at contemporary Italy than his previous films, which have stressed strong social concerns (“Forever Mery,” “The Pack”), Marco Risi’s “Three Wives” is a well-constructed comedy about the apparent expendability of wives at all levels of society. Pic is firmly behind the femmes who set off to Argentina in search of their bank-robber husbands, three heels who’ve vanished without even a fare-thee-well. Muscular direction and larger-than-life characters keep story rolling along, though ending lacks punch. It’s an enjoyable road movie that will please auds who go for Italo product.
Breathlessly racing for help, Bianca (young Neapolitan character actress Iaia Forte) stutters that her traditional New Year’s Eve lentils have overcooked and she needs another can.

The holiday dinners of Bianca, bourgeoisie wife Beatrice (Francesca d’Aloja) and punk rocker Billi (Silke) are all ruined when hubbies fail to show. A call from the police explains they’ve stolen $5 million from the bank where they worked, one as manager, one as cashier and one as an armed guard.

A year passes. Bianca makes a plea on TV for info re her loving spouse, and a restaurant owner in Buenos Aires phones in. This thin clue puts all three on the next plane to B.A., along with a mysterious fellow named Amedeo (Claudio Gregori).

Script milks good fun from the searchers’ clash of styles and personalities. As the neurotic, superstitious, asthmatic housefrau Bianca, who discovers what orgasm is from a hot tango instructor, Forte has never been better onscreen. D’Aloja gradually turns the skinny, elegant, stuck-up Beatrice into a very human character when the trail leads to a rich country estate, whose beautiful owner is her husband’s lover.

As young wife Billi, mono-monikered Spanish thesp Silke is improbably sexy and aggressive until she bonds with the other two and, again improbably, falls for the lovable “photographer” Amedeo. Too bad the story runs out of novelty by the time everyone gets to the southern tip of Argentina, and finishes a little lamely with a one-year-on coda.

Pic nonetheless has some fine on-the-nose timing reminiscent of bygone Italo comedy, of which the director’s father, Dino Risi, was a master. Italo Petriccione’s camerawork stays close to the actresses, lit like the strong faces of Almodovar heroines, but broadens out for eye-catching visuals of the pampas and Patagonia.