Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg is a pretty difficult movie to pin down and analyze. There are so many artistic and tonal choices this movie makes that gives us an impression of it being all over the place. There is one primary storyline about an introverted 23-year old preparing herself for her father's death, which of course, ties in with her own quest for experimentng independence through her closely selective social interactions.
Attenberg's biggest issue is how silly the movie becomes at certain points. Of course, that's what stood out in an otherwise forgetable movie, but it stood out in a less than desirable way. It's not very clear if those moments of silliness were intended to be silly or if it was so self indulgent that it comes across as parody of snobbish preteniousness. Even if I was approaching this at my most charitable by agreeing with the former, I still feel like it did more damage to the movie than elevate it as it so very clearly intended to do. You can't help but get the sense that they were trying new things which didn't land as deep as they thought it would.
Overall, nothing really happens in this movie despite its 90-ish minute runtime, and while it wasn't as slow as I though it might be, it definitely felt very forgetable even during the watch. Forgettable however, with the exception of its goofiness.
Attenberg's biggest issue is how silly the movie becomes at certain points. Of course, that's what stood out in an otherwise forgetable movie, but it stood out in a less than desirable way. It's not very clear if those moments of silliness were intended to be silly or if it was so self indulgent that it comes across as parody of snobbish preteniousness. Even if I was approaching this at my most charitable by agreeing with the former, I still feel like it did more damage to the movie than elevate it as it so very clearly intended to do. You can't help but get the sense that they were trying new things which didn't land as deep as they thought it would.
Overall, nothing really happens in this movie despite its 90-ish minute runtime, and while it wasn't as slow as I though it might be, it definitely felt very forgetable even during the watch. Forgettable however, with the exception of its goofiness.