[Movie Review] Gabriel Bier Gislason's ‘Attachment’ on Shudder
Rare is the film that includes both demonic possession and a rom-com style meet-cute, but Attachment, the debut feature horror film from writer/director Gabriel Bier Gislason, is rare, indeed. Sparks fly immediately for Danish actress Maja (Josephine Park, Baby Fever) and Leah (Ellie Kendrick, Game of Thrones) when they—quite literally—bump into each other at a local library, but their whirlwind romance is abruptly put on ice when Leah breaks her leg during an apparent epileptic seizure and has to return home to London. In a longshot attempt at keeping the kindling flame alight, Maja offers to accompany Leah, who lives in the upper-floor flat of her mother’s house.
As Maja comes to learn, Leah and her mother, Chana (Sofie Gråbøl, The House That Jack Built), live in a deeply Hasidic community in the Stamford Hill neighborhood, a community which they inherited in a sense from Leah’s father, who, unlike her mother, was extremely devoted in his religious practice. When he unexpectedly left his wife and daughter, Chana stuck to her new devotion in an attempt, perhaps, to be seen as less of an outcast by her neighbors. Maja’s awkward positioning in this dynamic adds a layered tension to the “meet the family” plot—not only is she the unexpected, unwelcome new partner to the only child of a protective mother, but the girlfriend of the worldly, gay daughter of a traditionalist mother trying to make inroads to a notoriously guarded sect. The wrinkle adds to the pressure Maja feels as she tries to make a good impression on Chana, but it also serves as a convenient plot device, giving audiences a chance to learn as Maja learns, without ever allowing it to feel too expository.
When Chana instructs Maja to “go for a walk,” as she dotes on her injured daughter, Maja wanders into a bookshop run by Lev (David Dencik, Chernobyl) where an awkward exchange turns into an unlikely alliance. While Leah helps explain some of her mother’s more eccentric superstitions—never leave an open book unattended, lest a demon sneak a peek and use the knowledge inside for evil—it’s Lev who helps Maja learn some of the basics of Kabbalah, a branch of mysticism rooted in esoteric interpretations of scripture, and in doing so, helps her unlock some of the deeper, possibly more dangerous practices going on under Chana’s roof.
Seeing Kabbalah represented in a horror film always gets my attention. I first learned of the practice in high school, the first time I saw Darren Aronofsky’s bizarre debut, Pi (1998). Fascinated by Max Cohen’s obsession with finding order in number theory, I wondered why such a rich source of mythology, and particularly, demonology, hadn’t been tapped more often for our supernatural terrors. It’s a well that has been drawn from more in recent years, with films like Demon (2016), A Dark Song (2016), and The Vigil (2019) pulling from the lore, but we are still far from reaching a saturation point. Even if it had, though, how Attachment is able to successfully weave its mythos so seamlessly into the plot, without sacrificing accessibility, is a feat in and of itself. As Maja learns more about Leah and Chana and the beliefs that rule the household, she begins to realize just how much she doesn’t know. She decides she must take drastic measures to ensure, not just her relationship, but Leah’s safety, as well.
Attachment stands out by providing us with a genuinely charming couple to root for while leading us down its winding, chilling conclusion. The small cast stands tall—everyone brings life to their well-crafted characters and competing personalities and perspectives complicate a plot that otherwise might have come across as stale amidst piles of other possession narratives. In particular, Dencik is fantastic as Lev, who is able to deliver some pretty heavy knowledge to Maja and even adds a modicum of sarcasm at times to break up the ongoing clashes between Maja and Chana. Sprinkling in those moments of levity—no pun intended—really helps the movie pace out its tense scenes while also maintaining the seriousness the situation calls for.
My only regret is that the film appears to button things up so nicely. It’s a common trap in possession films—the movie seems to be building toward a crescendo, only for the “final battle,” so to speak, to be wrapped up with little to no effort. While Attachment does add a wrinkle or two in its final scenes, and it makes salient points about codependency (not only are Leah and Chana over-reliant on each other, but Maja admits to needing to feel needed by Leah as well), I do wish the struggle to overcome their dependencies more accurately reflected the difficulty such relationships can be to break. It’s a minor complaint in an otherwise excellent entry to the genre, not to mention its use of a Jewish canon that is far too underutilized in horror films.
Article by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
