-By David Noh

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Leonardo (Oscar Martinez) is an eminent Argentinean writer who, with his wife Martha (Cecilia Roth), faces a dilemma common to many middle-aged couples—when the kids grow up and leave home and you are forced to finally confront your life partner again, strictly a deux, after decades of familial interruption. The differences between the two become ever more marked, as Leonardo is a solitary sort, content to immerse himself in his work and live largely in his head, while Martha needs social outlets which she finds in throwing parties that he finds disruptive and taking continuing-education courses at night where she meets new people, annoying to him.

Writer-director Daniel Burman has tackled an interesting, highly relevant subject with sensitivity and intelligence in Empty Nest. The problem is that not enough happens here to generate much viewer excitement. Burman captures the weary domestic life of a writer, as we see Leonardo putting up with kids and the chi-chi cocktail party chatter of Martha’s artist and wannabe-artistic friends, as well as irritating couples group therapy in traditionally psych-crazed Buenos Aires, all providing some mild initial amusement. Then we see him striking out on his own, embarking on a semi-tepid affair with a comely young dentist and indulging in his hobby of flying model airplanes (not much thrill to be had there, admittedly). There is one telling moment when an old friend of Leonardo advises him about the necessity to keep the interest going in his marriage: “It’s like things you put away in storage and forget about.”

The performances are marked by humor and considerable braininess, with Martinez a magisterially handsome if somewhat infuriatingly uncommunicative presence, and Roth (an Almodóvar favorite) convincingly showing her frustration at his failings in a way which will seem very familiar to many audience members.

Burman interjects some surreal moments, like a Felliniesque parade of models in a mall stalking Leonardo’s every move, but these seem rather desperate attempts to inject some thrills into the intellectual proceedings without ever being truly organic to the concept. And when the couple goes to Israel to visit their daughter who has married a Jew—both come across as pretty vapid—not enough is made of the basic culture clash and sense of displacement to generate true empathy.