Viewed as a companion piece to Dogtooth (the directors produced each other’s fims) Attenberg is thematically similar in that its naive, inexperienced leading lady portrays childlike behaviour, pretending to be animals with her best friend (she’s a Sir David Attenborough fan). The film shows her sexual awakening with an engineer through frank conversations with her friend and her father who is dying in hospital, but unlike Dogtooth, there’s no real context or humour (uncomfortable or not) to the drama which leaves the viewer cold.