Maja (Jospehine Park) is a 30-year-old unrealized actress from Copenhagen who will fall madly in love with a student from London Leah (Ellie Kendrick) who has arrived in Denmark for some research. The idyll will be short because after a mysterious seizure like epilepsy, Leah will have to return home, and Maja will follow her, to the orthodox Jewish quarter in London where Leah lives with her strict and secretive mother Chana (Sofie Grabol, who is still best remembered as a detective Sarah Lund from the already cult Danish series “Killing”). Chana is also of Danish origin, but from the beginning many things in the relationship between her sweetheart and her mother will be more than strange to Maji. He will discover some strange objects in the house and will begin to suspect that the cold and unhinged Chana is doing something to sabotage their relationship and push her to return home.
However, it will turn out that the story is much darker than what it seemed at first when it seemed that “Attachment” could be some sweet romantic comedy. Over time, Gabriel Bier Gislasson’s debut film will turn into a real folk horror, and it will soon become clear to us that the plot is not accidentally set in an orthodox Jewish community, about which Maja will learn something from Maja’s also secretive uncle Lev (David Dencik). In recent years, several horror films have appeared that deal with Jewish mysticism and demonology, such as the Polish “Demon” or the American “The Vigil”, and just as the world of Kabbalah, Golem or Dybbuk is completely unknown to Maya, it is also completely unknown to most viewers.
At the end of “Attachment” he leads us into the world of Jewish black magic, and this quite solid film will turn into a Jewish variation on the theme of “The Exorcist”. The strongest asset of this film is the well-structured story, which is both layered and creepy and dark at the same time. This creepiness will gradually intensify as the film develops and as Maja realizes that the illness and condition Leah is in is not something natural, but it is difficult for a person like her to believe in Jewish stories about magic, secrets, mysterious rituals and superstition.