Great movies aren’t just made with the heart. They’re also made with the head, and the hands – the combination of intention, intelligence, and technical ability producing a work of art that functions on every level. Kleidi Likola’s The Empty Nest has the heart, though it’s a little lacking in the other departments.
A story of a single mother whose only daughter has departed her home in the UK for university in Australia. It’s a short, thin snapshot of a poignant, significant moment in a life, crafted with sentimentality and little awareness of how to execute its intentions.
Likola’s scenario lacks some believability – the first scene, the daughter’s departure, is a meaningful moment between two people who clearly love one another, though its brevity and emotional weightlessness diminish its poignancy. From there, the remainder of The Empty Nest is miniature vignettes of the mother’s loneliness.
A video call with her daughter as she blows out a solitary candle on her birthday cake in her dark kitchen. An incursion into her daughter’s bedroom, unchanged since her leaving. A memory of the two playing piano together, and then mother playing the same piece without her daughter. A teddy bear perched on the music stand to make sure the heartstrings are tugged as taut as possible.
It’s moving, if somewhat blunt, though the directness is understandable given the short runtime, and it’s not wholly ineffective. Likola’s heart is evident, but her technical ability could use some improvement – a forgiveable qualm given the film’s status as a student work.
Sets are sparsely decorated and lit with functional practical lighting. The characters are thinly developed, though perhaps as developed as they could be in just five minutes. There’s doubtless a fine, profound movie in here, or at least the bare bones of one. It’d take the heart, the head, and the hands to make that movie. Likola has the first of those and, should she apply the same diligence in refining the second and third, she may yet make it.
