Marina (Ariane Labed, ALPS) lives a solitary existence with her terminally-ill architect father Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis, RUNNING ON EMPTY), who wants to be cremated even though the Greek Orthodox church forbids it. Marina's sexual development has been understandably stunted by her closeness to her father - with whom she watches the Greek-subtitled nature documentaries hosted and narrated by Sir David Attenborough (Marina's mispronunciation of his surname being the origin of the film's title) - but Spyros has also realized that his modern cynicism has left his daughter bereft of any way to meaningfully relate to other people and to cope with his absence. Marina's only friend is the predatory Bella (Evangelia Randou, KINETTA), whose more practical demonstrations of physical intimacy do little to enthuse Marina towards human contact ("it's like a slug in my mouth"). A distraction from planning her father's funeral arrangements comes in the form of an engineer (Yorgos Lanthimos, writer/director of DOGTOOTH) who she chauffeurs around town, and whom she has decided will take her virginity; but will thrusting herself into "adulthood" also allow her to cope with her father's impending death?

While not as shocking or graphic as DOGTOOTH - produced by this film's writer/director Athina Rachel Tsangari - ATTENBERG shares some thematic strands. The Greek modernity so detested by Spyros here provides the means for the family's insulated world in the former film, and its urban uniformity here is a source of comfort for Marina. Here, Greek law and tradition are the foil for the film's father figure, who only realizes too late the damage he has wrought as a failed parent. Marina tells her father that she prefers women although they do not arouse her, and her interest in the female form has more to do with curiosity over her own body than any suggestion of latent homosexuality (even when she's French-kissing or fondling Bella), and her revulsion/fascination with men does seem to stem from her difficulty imagining her father as a sexual being (and we see that a need to come to terms with that is a major hurdle to her potential growth later in the film). Bella is an underdeveloped but interesting figure here. She's Marina's "childhood" friend - their weirdness throughout the film could be likened to childish displays as much as displays of nonconformity - but we never really know just what Bella gets out of her relationship with the socially awkward Marina. The engineer is also an ambiguous figure (is his extreme patience with Marina out of concern or curiosity?) Viewers expecting continental naughtiness and more DOGTOOTH-level explicitude will be disappointed.