The father is the only member of the family allowed to leave the house. To instill fear into his children he keeps his car inside the compound and never touches or sets foot on the floor outside of the fence in front of them. He also creates another brother who he claims was ostracised from the home for bad behaviour, thus keeping the children obedient and submissive. What the father doesn't realise though, is that his children are now past the stage of puberty and are starting to question what is behind the fence that keeps them in exile.
With his son becoming older and his primal urges getting stronger the father hires a security guard at his factory to relieve his son. The security guard is blind folded until she reaches the family's enclosure and is taken to a room where awkward, cold, missionary sex takes place. The security guard soon tires of the son's lack of interest in her own sexual pleasures and bribes the eldest daughter to perform cunnilingus in exchange for a headband. This confuses the daughter who then uses licking as a way to placate her sister and father when she wants something.
Later in the film when the security guard attempts to bribe the daughter with hair gel the bribery doesn't work. The daughter has realised it is she who holds the power in this situation and demands the two video tapes, "Jaws" and "Rocky" that the security guard is holding. Secretly as her family sleeps the daughter watches her first ever film, "Rocky", and becomes engrossed in the violent storyline. She later recites quotes to her bewildered siblings and tells them to call her "Bruce". This is when we learn the children do not even have names, as the younger daughter says "I wish I had a name like Bruce."
That morning a cat is in the garden. The son's terror at seeing this tiny, cute creature is tangible yet amusing. To save his sisters and himself from imminent death he stabs the cat with shears. Frightened his children will start questioning the outside world, the father covers himself in fake blood and claims the ostracised son on the outside was killed by the cat who came in the garden. The children throw "zombies" over the wall in respect of their deceased brother and are then trained to protect themselves from other cats by getting on their knees and barking with their mother.
Along with the themes of sexuality and submission, the political subtext in this film is heavy handed and strong as Lanthimos forces us to question our own Government's intention of instilling fear and isolation into all of us. As CCTV follows our every move and violence in computer games is banned we believe this is to protect us, as the children in "Dogtooth" believe they too are being protected.
That is to say that it is not all fear and misery in this Greek family home. The parents play games with the children through the day, not only as a distraction, but to also make them competitive and keep them fit. Their prize is usually a sticker to put on their head board and occasionally a toy plane. At first it is disturbing when the children say they want the planes to fall out of the sky but their minds do not see planes as actual planes but as toys which, unbeknown to them, their mother throws into the garden. The competitive nature of the children is enhanced by a belief that when they are at the level of maturity expected of them their "dogtooth" will fall out and be replaced by a new one. This non existing tooth is their escape into the outside world.
It is the night after "Rocky" that Bruce slips "Jaws" into the VCR, only for her father to wake up and catch her. He asks her to give him the film and get him some masking tape. Calmly, he wraps the masking tape around his hand and the film before brutally attacking his daughter around the head. This is clearly a man who does not like losing control. He then goes to the home of the security guard, beats her and curses her to have future badly behaved children.
With the security guard not around to relieve their son of his primal urges, the two parents get him to sit in the bath with his eyes closed. His two sisters are brought in and he paws at them, trying to decide which one to pick. He chooses Bruce who is bathed and dressed nicely by her mother for the occasion of losing her virginity to her brother. The girl is clearly in discomfort throughout the scene and afterwards threatens her brother not to hurt her again with a quote she heard on "Rocky".
It is at this point in the film that it becomes obvious that the children's minds are becoming more warped from their surroundings. Bruce and the younger daughter dance for their parents and brother in a strange and ludicrous display of awkward moves and gestures. Bruce gets carried away, dancing until exhaustion as her mother scolds her. Later that night, in a shocking and graphic scene, Bruce knocks her "dogtooth" out with a dumb bell. Leaving the sink bloody and her tooth behind, Bruce races to her fathers car and climbs into the boot. As she locks herself inside her family have noticed her dissapearance and race to find her. The mother and two other siblings bark at the entry gate as the father runs down the road and into the bushes to find her. With no luck the family go back to bed, upset at the loss of Bruce to the outside world. The film ends with the father parking at work and a close up of the boot of the car.
It is a difficult film to watch with no particularly happy ending. Does Bruce escape or is she caught by her father? Does she die from dehydration in the cramped boot of the car? Do the other children ever try to escape their prison? Lanthimos leaves his audience with more questions than answers and his characters still trapped in their own deranged world, which is probably how he likes it.
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