After literally bumping into each other in a library, Maja (Josephine Park) and Leah (Ellie Kendrick) hook up.
Following an accident, Maja decides to follow Leah home to the UK.
The couple’s plans are put in peril as soon as they step inside Leah’s home.
Leah’s ultra religious mother (Sofie Gråbøl) is cold and uncommunicative, the home is filled with unexplained religious iconography, and the house is filled with strange noises at night.
So many horror movies are based in Christian iconography that it is a cliche now. Attachment got onto my radar because it was a religious horror movie where the religion was not Christ-centric.
The only horror movie I have seen before with a basis in Jewish mysticism and mythology was David Goyer’s The Unborn, where a woman had to deal with a Dubbyk, the spirit of a restless dead person.
Attachment is also about a Dubbyk, but is more interested in other kinds of attachments.
Written and directed by Gabriel Bier Gislason, Attachment recognises that the true horror lies in the mundane unknowns of everyday life.
Attachment is about the terror of a new relationship - who is this person I have let into my life?
Onto this fear is stacked the awkwardness of meeting your significant other’s parents; potential cultural clashes and confusion; and the fear of sexual acceptance.
All these tensions are underwritten by the dread of the uncanny: Leah’s seizures; Chana’s distance; the mystical protections around the house.
The film is more interesting in the first two thirds, when we are stuck in the house with Maja, Leah and Chana.
Once the mystery is defined, and Uncle Lev (David Dencik) has begun the exorcism, it starts to feel a little familiar.
Attachment falters in the third act, but it is fairly involving overall.
And the lead players make a believable couple.
Maybe it is my ignorance of the supernatural elements, but the relationship was almost more interesting than the supernatural stuff.
Josephine Park and Ellie Kendrick have solid chemistry, and their interactions with Sofie Gråbøl are more tense, funny and ambiguous than the creaking floorboards and possessions.
As the protagonist, Josephine Park is a fascinating point of audience identification.
Maja is introduced dressed as the children’s TV character she used to play. She seems checked out and resigned.
She is presented as disorganised and uninterested in life - and because she still lives in her mother’s house, she has nothing at stake. There is an impetuous, childish quality to her that Park offsets with an emotional retricance.
When she agrees to join Leah, it is on a whim. While she is clearly enamoured, it also feels like she wants an escape from her current existence.
The film is at its strongest when it is reflecting Maja’s fears back at her:
your life is an endless loop that you can never break out of
That you are not worthy of love
Do my loved ones have my best interests at heart?
Maybe it is a personal preference - I am not the biggest fan of supernatural horror to begin with.
Because of those personal stakes, the movie is only intermittently engaging as a horror film. If you can overlook the ending, it is a decent character drama.
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