What at first appears to be a run-of-the-mill trauma drama about a family dealing with the eldest child’s anorexia nervosa gradually evolves into something odder and more original, even blackly comic, in Ungrateful Beings .

Working with a script half in English for the first time with a tale set partly in Croatia, Prague-based Slovene Olmo Omerzu seems to be playing here with a bigger budget and broader distribution ambitions than his mostly Czechia-centric earlier features, Family Film , Winter Flies and Bird Atlas . However, thematically and stylistically this is of a piece with its predecessors’ interest in dysfunctional families, troubled teens and tweens (once again directed with skill by Omerzu), and unexpected narrative diversions and surprises.

What at first appears to be

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