At less than two hours though, the film is never a slog. There was potential here to create a compelling drama about the dark secrets that ordinary folk bury out of sight. But at best it’s a half-baked experiment with a few shining moments.

Everyone plays it quite competently, despite the predictable beats. Nice to see Renuka Shahane, who aims for naturalness despite some stodginess in the way her part is written.

This isn’t a film that lacks ambition but it never becomes one that is essential.

This isn’t a film that lacks ambition but it never becomes one that is essential.

Watch 3 Storeys for an unconventional treatment and short length which is rare in Hindi movies.

Watch 3 Storeys for an unconventional treatment and short length which is rare in Hindi movies.

3 Storeys is a movie of endless surprises: There’s one murder, one giant regret re-lived and regurgitated, and one devastating catastrophe that comes out of nowhere. But none of these high-points has any room for discharge.

The dead man and the wailing lovers, all seem to be holding it back for the fear that the neighbours may hear them.

For all its flaws, 3 Storeys is still worth watching because it seeks to engage with the audience in a manner that is anything but run of the mill.

3 Storeys cleverly demonstrates the art of skillfully telling a story wherein all the loose ends of a plot are tied together into a neat whole. Watch it because fact is stranger than fiction, but fiction when narrated well, can make movie watching an immersive experience.

All said and done, this movie is for those who enjoy suspense thrillers. Keep your expectations in control and you’ll surely get worth your ticket price. Renuka Shahane will surprise you and on an average, you’ll like at least one story of all the three.

Have we seen such anthologies on the Indian screen before? Joshi himself was part of Life In A Metro, similarly a slice of life kinda collection of shorts, set in a metro. But this one is more like Dus Kahaniyan, if you may, only less exhausting, since lengths of films don’t matter as much as moving from one experience to another, without much of a breather, does.

3 Storeys is a well-made film which boasts of fine performances by the lead actors, but the fact remains that its commercial prospects are very weak.

3 Storeys are three stories about people who live in a Mumbai Chawl (old fashioned project housing). It’s almost refreshing and yet not really. Someone from the ensemble cast overdoes it. It’s almost good, and then it isn’t because you’ve read the story somewhere. It’s an idea that’s not new and yet, a decent effort. Would have been smarter move to put it straight to Netflix or Amazon.

The narration saunters along such that even a judicious running time of around 100 minutes feels uncomfortably long. Mukherjee manages to achieve a sense of voyeurism, but once you have seen enough of their lives, you leave the characters behind in their milieu without a backward glance…

Overall, an intelligent viewer would initially dismiss the film as a lazily penned plot with banalities and plot-holes galore, but then the writers cheekily and astutely wrap up the film… At some points, it makes you say, “Ah, I did not see that coming.”

3 Storeys, which is well-cast with suitable talents, is a quirky cinematic experiment. Like bedtime stories, some stick while others are entirely forgettable. This film, which is a collection of such bedtime stories, is stuck somewhere in the middle.

The only grouch I have is a couple of songs and scenes that pace down the film and make it a bit lengthy. A sharper edit could have made it even more exciting, but that shouldn’t stop you from watching 3 Storeys.

But the film, hook, line and sinker, or rather, all three storeys of it, is dominated (and how!) by Renuka Shahane Rana as Flory aunty. As the wigged, middle-aged and feisty Christian lady with a private agenda (the only story here that packs a whopping wallop!), she proves that for a consummate actor, absence from work is no deterrent for a whacko, truly awe-inspiring performance. She gets in this extra half-star to an otherwise strictly average film.