Shudder Sunday: Attachment (2022)

While too familiar to call it great, “Attachment” does plenty right and is certainly worth your time; just don’t expect to get too attached.

Film lovers, likers, and writers alike dedicate plenty of figurative ink to movies that overwhelm and underwhelm. We ignore those humble little heroes, the movies that simply “whelm” — perhaps because that’s a word I made up because Webster’s is too cowardly to do what needs to be done.

Attachment, a Jewish horror movie filtered through a fish-out-of-water romantic comedy, is the platonic ideal of a whelming movie, and all the better for it.

The movie doesn’t re-create the mold, nor does it knock any socks off. And that’s ok; who wants cold feet?

Attachment is a well-worm, ‘sweatpants’ of a movie that moves at a steady, enjoyable clip.

We begin in Denmark when lonely, repressed Maja (Josephine Park) meets and nearly immediately falls in love with Leah (Ellie Kendrick), a British student studying abroad. The two begin a fling that turns into an attachment (nudge, wink) that becomes a relationship.

Leah’s got some strange tendencies.

She sleepwalks and stands statically in front of Maja’s mirror, Paranormal Activity style. She zones out and continually evades her mother’s phone calls. The pair’s honeymoon period is cut short when Leah suffers a seizure that leads to a broken leg and needs to return to London.

Maja impulsively agrees to accompany Leah home, eager to hold onto their burgeoning romance.

The duo stays in the flat Leah shares with her smothering mother, Chana (Sofie Grabol).

Chana is as cold and aloof to Maja as she is protective of Leah. Chana is an Orthodox Jew, and her religion informs much of her behavior.

Maja stumbles through a new apartment, city, and family dynamic, experiencing a culture she is wildly unfamiliar with. As Maja begins finding charms, cryptically painted bowls, and salt piles throughout the flat, she develops a suspicion that Chana is using nefarious means to keep Leah close to her.

To Attachment’s enduring credit, Maja doesn’t immediately jump to magic or curses.

She believes Chana is mentally ill and poisoning Leah. Maja meets a helpful bookstore proprietor named Lev (David Dencik), who also happens to be Leah’s paternal uncle, and he helps guide her through the mysterious Hebrew texts.

Attachment seeds many indicators that things aren’t what they seem.

The twist probably won’t shock too many viewers once it arrives.

I’m about to dive into that twist, so if you don’t want it ruined, maybe check out now because it will inform much of the rest of this review.

Maja uses dirty tricks to convince Leah to leave her mother’s home and retreat to a country house. It is quickly apparent that Leah is possessed by one of the dybbuks Lev previously mentioned. Her behavior becomes erratic and violent. She eats a cat and a neighbor.

Lev and Chana show up and reveal her condition to Maja, who struggles to believe it. In her defense, a possessed lover is a tough pill to swallow.

There’s no need to spoil the rest of the movie to provide a thorough analysis. Suffice it to say things make the natural progression from bad to worse before reaching a resolution.

Attachment can’t stand on the power of a possession film alone.

The film doesn’t dedicate enough screen time to showing Dybbuk controlling Leah.

It alludes to more than it shows, which is fine. One assumes the movie may have been made on a limited budget and made do with spoken exposition. However, anyone hoping for The Exorcist levels of demon possession will be sorely disappointed.

Attachment works because it fuses its parts seamlessly.

Leah and Maja are likable protagonists. Chana becomes more sympathetic as we begin to understand her motivation. The movie’s greatest strength, however, is the use of the Kabbalah.

At this point, the Catholic notion of possession and exorcism is exhausted.

Every once in a while, we get something like the brilliant and underwatched The Exorcist tv show that finds a new and exciting approach to the source material, but mostly…we get it. We’ve seen it. We know it. It’s still fun, but it’s old hat.

ATTACHMENT filters its possession through Jewish mysticism, something that’s new to many viewers and that provides a fresh perspective and an element of unpredictability.

Attachment even tilts its romantic elements, something we seldom see. Repeatedly, Maja makes grand romantic gestures, the kind that would save the day in most movies. However, in this film, Maja’s romantic gestures almost always end in disaster.

The film says that love is great, sure, but it’s not going to save the day… and may actually cloud our vision from the best choices.

Still, there is a familiarity to Attachment, which isn’t intrinsically bad.

While the film is predictable, it’s because it makes the correct and logical narrative choices. It doesn’t swerve simply to shock, it pursues the rational ends created by solid character development.

Finally, title enthusiasts — I know you’re out there; it can’t just be me; maybe it’s just me — will delight in the triple meaning of the title. The titular attachment can refer to Leah and Maja, Leah and Chana, or Leah and her little dybbuk buddy.

Which brings it all back to whelmed.

Attachment is a competent, well-made movie with plenty of sweetness and suspense. I’m absolutely comfortable recommending it to friends, and it inspired some post-film conversation. However, it doesn’t possess the inspired electricity we feel from something new.

It’s good. It’s comfortable. It’s worth your minutes, but it probably won’t make it onto anyone’s “Best of 2023” list.

It won’t make it onto anyone’s “Worst of 2023” list either.

But friends….it absolutely owns the “finest of 2023” list.