The last child's departure from home signals a new stage in the life of the parents. It is usually a time when women are empowered by the autonomy that can come with middle age. For men, it is often a different story as they struggle to come to terms with breaking out of the prison of habit and finding new channels of creativity.

Leo (Oscar Martinez) is a successful author and playwright in Buenos Aires who is shocked when his daughter spends her first night away from the family. His wife Martha (Cecilia Roth), who has been married to Leo for 20 years, is not ruffled by this event at all. In a rush of excitement, she has returned to the university to finish a career she abandoned when they started their family. With new sexual vitality, Martha has surrounded herself with a circle of admiring men and women.

This leaves Leo alone with his thoughts and a new book that is forming in his mind. A dominant image stands out: that of a couple floating beside one another in water. He meets a psychologist at a dinner party who tells him of his research on individuals who have fantasies about the past which are very different from what really happened. Leo is very interested in this subject and ponders it while flying his model airplane in the park. A young, attractive dental hygienist stirs strong erotic feelings within Leo. He finds himself obsessed with her even to the point of following her to a mall.

Daniel Burman is an imaginative Argentinian writer and director whose previous films include Lost Embrace (2003) and Family Law (2006). Both were about sons and fathers and the struggles they go through with each other. Here the challenge of middle age for this worn-out male is to see whether his marriage can be retrieved or whether he will give in to the impulse of escaping reality altogether through his elaborate fantasies. Are his encounters with the young woman real or just imagined?

Burman circles around this artist and gets plenty of mileage out of the contrast between Leo and his lovely and energetic wife who is flourishing outside their empty nest. The film offers several fresh twists and slants on the challenges of middle age.

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