LEONARDO likes to go to the dentist. He’s not a pain freak like Jack Nicholson in “The Little Shop of Horrors.”
It’s just that Leonardo (Oscar Martinez), a middle-age Argentine playwright, has lust in his heart for his foxy young dentist, who has a way of brushing his cheek with her breast while she probes inside his mouth.
Leonardo and his still-hot wife, bleached-blonde Martha (Cecilia Roth), are going through late-life crises after the last of their three children at home marries an Israeli guy and leaves Buenos Aires.
Martha copes by going back to school and inviting friends over to stink up her apartment with cigarette smoke, which drives Leonardo bonkers.
Leonardo takes refuge in fantasies that the viewer might have trouble distinguishing from reality.
Their story unfolds leisurely in the Argentine comedy “Empty Nest,” written and directed by Daniel Burman. The script doesn’t offer anything especially new, but Burman infuses the film with innovative lensing and capable acting that should draw in viewers.
Incidentially, the daughter who married an Israeli is played by super-skinny Ines Efron, who did a great job as a hermaphrodite in “XXY,” which I included on my list of the 10 best movies of 2008.
In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 92 minutes. Not rated (sexuality). At the Quad, 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.