Lamb (2016)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

David(Ross Partridge) is a forty seven year old man who has just lost his father and divorced his wife and seems on the verge of a nervous break down. After burying his father, he meets an eleven year old girl, Tommie(Oona Laurence) at a parking lot, where, somehow, they connect. Thus begins a strange journey, where the two relate on an emotional level. David takes Tommie on a road trip to a desolate cabin in the mountains while searching for some meaning to his life. Tommie is an outcast with indifferent parents. The writer of the novel, Lamb, Bonnie Nadzam, claims to never have read Lolita, which was also adapted for the screen in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick. The themes are similar, but Lolita's protagonist, played by the precocious and self assured fifteen year old Sue Lyon, is a million miles apart from the innocent eleven year old Oona Laurence. Though at times unsettling, Lamb never veers into Lolita's explicitly sexual territory. Partridge and Laurence are riveting together and I look forward to see what the young actress does next. Lamb is a solid 8/10.

I'm writing this as I'm watching this movie. I'm only 30 minutes into this film and I'm already immensely disturbed. This movie is trying to make the viewer like this 47 year old man who is trying to seduce an 11 year old girl! WTF! I like Tommy. She's a bright kid who doesn't get any attention from her parents and her "friends" are assholes. She is somewhat more mature than most 11 year old but she definitely looks younger than 11 (like 9) and has a naive nature, as she should, about Gary's intentions. Why would someone make this film unless they have the same sick desires as Gary? The acting was superb. I understand why Tommy was intrigued with Gary, she's a little girl starving for attention. This is type of movie that sickos watch and cheer for Gary to succeed with his sick perversion. If you watch this film at the theater make sure you look around and observe the men in the audience, especially the one's sitting alone. I'm sure Woody Allen loved this movie. I don't know if I can stomach the rest of this movie. I will probably cut it off before the ending. OK now she seems like she wants to go home and he is pressing her to stay. She looks scared. Uhg!

Let first state this. No man should spend a week with a young 11 year old, without her parents consent. Or even with.The main character is a manipulator. A liar. And he is very unstable. Yet his girl-friend not leaves him, and shows him affection, and even really cares, surprises him. So why, he need to be with that young girl? What does she gives him?What is frustrating many things are just not clear. The story of the brother, why he has to lie about his wife leaving him. It seems he has no children, somebody that looks up to him?The girl is getting slowly in her adolescence, but has no evolution yet, she looks like a child. Yes at home she not gets much attention, but we not see her really mistreated, beating or anything like that. She likes the attention of this older man, that she trust, and he makes her escape her boring life and makes her probably special. SO she gets a crush on him, like girls can have for an older guy, in real life often their teacher.But the main character, who seems a nice person, is in fact an egoist. He uses her. Never it seems in a sexual way,but his intentions are not clear. On several occasions he touches her. A man should NOT touch a girl that is not related, this way, even if is not in a sexual matter. If he would have spend this time, knowing everything with my daughter, is something I could not stand. Again, what I not understand is his satisfaction. He had a wife, he HAS a girl-friend that seems to care for real, he NOT wants to be the good Samaritan. He say the girl she can kick him when he is in a retirement home? Why? Because the girl think they have a platonic love-affair that cannot be answered? Or did he abuse her at the end? Or because the love she felt could not be consumed, and with him leaving her, is more desperate then before she met him?One thing is clear, all he got is the girl confused at the end. The love making went to another, there was nothing at the end for her. He just messed her up, and why needed to be with this young girl, is not clear. As his relation with his father, now dead did not seem satisfying either, did he then just had the need to play a better dad himself? Giving the girl affection(and receiving it), he never had from his dad himself? This would make the whole story much more innocent then.

I don't even know what to think about this movie, but I bet its going to be very big in pedophile circles. Its about a 47 yr old lonely guy who meets/befriends an 11 year old (whose parent is nowhere ever) that comes up to him at a truck stop in heels asking for a cigarette & then takes her on a trip with him. He urges her to lie to anyone they meet about who she is and their relationship. She asks to both call home and go home to which he refuses stating that would get her in more trouble. Then after being around this guy for a week and he doesn't molest or murder her she decides she's in love with him, further showing she is too young for even a friendship with this man. Yes the acting is flawless, superb. It is an absolute beautifully made movie. But their is beauty in illusion. I get that these two characters are lost/lonely and the girl is both abused & starving for affection and you can argue all day that this is a beautiful movie about friendship, but this movie is completely & utterly socially irresponsible!!! I believe this movie is an attempt to start controversy and make the audience think that this is such art that this situation could be appropriate if it was handled as delicately. NO. See it for what it is. It is a grown man trying to make friends with a child, not a girlfriends daughter, not a niece, a separate child. Deplorable.