The French affection (affectation?) for conversational film reaches absurd proportions in the talkathon “Domain.”
“Betty Blue” star Beatrice Dalle, who resembles Angelina Jolie, plays a wintry mathematician named Nadia, who strikes up a friendship with her handsome young nephew Pierre (Isaïe Sultan), a gay student. They go on long walks together during which she talks about nothing (sample line: “I have a frightening memory and nothing to transmit”) and he listens, inexplicably rapt.
The many scenes of him blowing off friends to be with this sleekly acerbic older woman seem to promise some sort of conflict, and the movie might be interesting if there were a sexual spark between the two. I exaggerate slightly when I say nothing ever happens. (It’s beautifully shot, though, in golden shadows reminiscent of Gordon Willis’ celebrated photography for “The Godfather.”)
Gradually it emerges that Nadia is a drunkard who is going to have to be institutionalized, but the movie’s “Magic Mountain” third act is only marginally more dramatic than the rest. Doomed though she may be, she’s still a bore.