Domain

First-time feature director Patric Chiha explores the relationship between a self-destructive mathematician and her impressionable nephew in this probing, if occasionally pretentious character piece. Nadia (Béatrice Dalle) and her 17-year-old student Pierre (Isaïe Sultan) meet regularly to walk around Bordeaux and the surrounding countryside, as she shares her cynical philosophies about life. Nadia explains her interest in mathematics by noting that "words are disorder," while Pierre mostly listens to her as dutifully as an acolyte. Although the situation seems innocent enough, Nadia doesn't hesitate to talk about her sexual encounters, including her first assignation with her late physicist husband. During the course of the film, the protagonists segue from a parent-child situation to something more ambiguous, although never conventionally romantic, since Pierre is gay. While Nadia, who drinks too much, is attentive to Pierre, she's also critical, dishonest, and dismissive of almost everyone else, including her "dangerous" older friend Samir (Alain Libolt). Pierre's mother worries they spend too much time together, claiming that "her originality is an illusion," but Pierre finds his age-appropriate friends boring by comparison. With Nadia increasingly found in a drunken stupor, however, his role changes from companion to caretaker—a situation that shifts when Pierre meets someone new. A strong optional purchase. (K. Fennessy)