Three Steps Above Heaven

Three Steps Above Heaven (2010) is a Spanish teenage love story. Babi comes from a comfortable family, H races in the streets and gets into fights. The film puts the class difference between them, and each one's attempt to change the other, at its centre. The source is a novel by the Italian writer Federico Moccia. It had already been filmed in Italy in 2004; this Spanish version is by Fernando González Molina. It became a cultural event in Spain and made stars of Mario Casas and María Valverde for a generation. A sequel, Tengo ganas de ti, followed in 2012. Moccia's book left a physical mark too. The habit of couples attaching a padlock to the Ponte Milvio in Rome and throwing the key into the river spread from this novel and then jumped to other countries, until the weight damaged the bridge and the city had to remove them. It runs 122 minutes. Good for: teen melodrama, Spanish popular cinema, and stories about a first love. Less good for: the boy's anger and jealousy are presented as romantic qualities and the film almost never questions that. The class conflict stays shallow, and the ending is built to force an emotional response.