An empty house gives a woman a new lease on life but leaves her husband with a midlife crisis in this comedy from writer and director Daniel Burman. Leonardo (Oscar Martinez) is a successful playwright in his mid-fifties who has been married to Martha (Cecilia Roth) for most of his adult life. While Leonardo is still writing new work and in good health, he and Martha are both reacting in very different ways to the fact their youngest daughter, Julia (Inés Efron), is engaged to be married and
soon to move out of the house. Martha returns to college to complete her studies and begins moving in a new social circle, while also looking for new ways to enliven her relationship with her husband, including psychotherapy and freely expressing her feelings. Leonardo, on the other hand, is too caught up in his anxieties about growing older to go along with Martha's new program; however, he does find himself newly interested in other women, but he goes a good deal further in his imagination than he can in real life. Also starring Arturo Goetz, Eugenia Capizzano, and Jean Pierre Noher, El Nido Vacío (aka Empty Nest) received its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
There is one little problem with the Argentine drama Empty Nest, an all-too-convincing film about a man suffering from a middle-aged malaise: Nothing of interest happens.
Burman's fifth feature is too slight and uneven to fully satisfy, even though it does have much of the same wit and insight as Lost Embrace and Family Law, two previous films that earned the director many comparisons to Woody Allen.
A leisurely, genial look at a man escaping from his insecurities into a surreal fantasy life, keeping the audience guessing what is real, until he floats into maturity.
The longer the film's fiftysomething playwright watches his marriage wither, his kids grow up and his teeth rot, the more psychological acuity gives way to the usual obsessing over loss and nubile females.
Empty Nest doesn't offer anything new in the style Ingmar Bergman made so famous, but the film captures your heart thanks to the fine acting of its two main characters and Burman's deft hand.
It's one of those films whose appeal grows post-screening. Fluently shot with frequent but not jerky handheld camera shots and engagingly edited, Empty Nest is discreetly stylish.
Una comedia dramática algo melancólica sobre la crisis de los 50, desde el punto de vista de un hombre cuyos hijos han dejado el hogar. Estupenda labor de Oscar Martínez.
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