Lamb

Not usual movie fare at all. I read reviews prior, so I knew it wasn't about pedophilia. I stay away from dark movies, even most modern movies because of the darkness. Actually I've lived with too much darkness and drama, so I have no vicarious interest whatsoever ! This peaked my interest because I was one of those unwanted and neglected girls but I was 17 when I met my guy age 27, like this. He tried to show me the good side of life. I recently looked up his Facebook, he died at 70, I'm 60 now. But he had a post against anti-abortionists, asking how many unwanted kids have they adopted ! He saw the horrors of my life firsthand ! As a matter of fact, I remained childless because I never had everything in place to give children a good life. The way I see this movie is this man life is in crisis, he even wonders if he's a good person. Drowning in his own life, he tries to throw a protective lifeline to the girl. He meets this young girl asking for a cigarette, dressed nearly like a hooker. He tries to warn her it's dangerous to go up to men like that right away. Later he said his kid brother vanished without a trace, they never heard from him again. Another part he says "You pretend to be my older sister, warning me what to watch out for". I think that was his wishing someone had done that for him, now that his life is a mess. Yes it is weird she's age 11, but life doesn't work out in neat boxes either. He said that her family would appreciate her more when she got home. I can't even try psyco-analyzing a movie. I wasted too much of my life trying to understand crazy and broken people as is. It's like trying to analyze a cesspool... I give 5 stars for creative plotline and good acting. I am really glad for something different than usual Hollywood trash these days. It reminds me of a European movie, just revealing a slice of life.

we see children, like this little girl, all over the world. loved, starved, beaten, and neglected. at home, along with a soul wiser than their years, peering at us, from a piercing steer with tired hurt eyes, already giving up on whether living would ever get better. streetwise beyond belief. this seemingly nice guy comes along and suggests they run away together for a week to his farm, where he was heading anyway. the problem. she is 11 and he is middle aged. the tension was creepy waiting for some type of child molester behavior to surface. especially during the bath scenes and later when she was in the towel. but it never did. he was just loving her, in his way, but more than caring for a child. we see this in the ways he tells her how beautiful she is. as promised he brings her back home in one week. she does not want to leave, and chases after the car crying. to me, this was probably this most emotional damage he inflicted during the week, of secrets, and taking her away from her abusive family, illegally. he inflicted pure unadulterated rejection, and maybe her first real broken heart. it brought back some very real painful memories of me and my brothers running after my dad at times after his court ordered 9 hour weekly visits ended. my father felt like he had done his parental duty, all the while leaving us alone with a woman who has the 2nd most serious brain disorder on the planet, with no adult support, and 3 little children to raise, along with $60 a week child support. this young girl in the movie just had a glimpse of a type love, gifts, regular food, a bed to sleep in. not having to withstand abuse every day, or fear. for her, that time away was a tease of what could be. my visits to my dads were the same. the utter devastation, and helplessness you feel as a child when the good times are over and you are back in a very dark reality that you have no control over is hard to express and I think that they did a great job at the end when you see her bag just sitting there, bleak, alone, on the sidewalk. this was emphasized by the sound of the city, but no family or love waiting. really dark, hard to watch. I gave it 3 stars because the little girl was brilliant. I do not normally watch child abuse films. i thought of the film, the Professional, with Natalie Portman and Jean Reno. There was much more innocence there, and a real love expressed in a very dark situation. This young actress was not a Natalie Portman, but still carried her own. God Bless, in Christ, Cherie

Lamb is unlike anything I’ve seen—eerie, emotional, and deeply symbolic. The cinematography is stunning, and the story leaves you thinking long after it ends. A slow-burn, but totally worth the ride if you’re into dark, artsy films.

An excellent, frightening but touching movie based on the novel by Bonnie Nadzam about a taboo subject in today's world, the relationship between an adult male and a tween girl. 47 year old Chicagoan David Lamb, (actor, screenwriter, director Ross Partridge) is forced to take 2 weeks off work after an emotional breakdown. He meets an abused and neglected 11 year old girl named Tommie (Oona Laurence, also appearing in the new remake of Disney's "Pete's Dragon", in theaters August 12, 2016, 2D/3D) when her friends dare her to ask him for a cigarette in a convenience store parking lot. Tommie, dressed inappropriately provocative in scanty clothing and high heels is stunned when David not only gives her a cigarette but lights it, forcing her to smoke it. David convinces Tommie to let him pretend to kidnap her but her "friends" don't notice him pulling her to his truck. Driving her a few blocks away, he lets her out of his truck. David warns Tommie to dress more appropriately and to stop talking to strangers because she can't tell if they are good or bad people. Over the next day or two, the two meet again in the parking lot and he convinces her to go on a "5 day" trip with him to his dad's cabin outside Laramie, WY, later saying it will take 3 days to get there. The girl's mother and her boyfriend, a pair of abusive druggies and heavy drinkers, ignore the girl or kick her out of their apartment when they aren't verbally or physically abusing her. The two talk, joke and argue with each other in the coming days, spending 2 platonic nights in motels along the way. It appears David is trying to "groom" Tommie the way a sexual predator would, showing her more concern about her welfare than she has had in her life. The viewer becomes more and more unnerved as you are taken into a very dark part of your own mind. Expecting a sexually abusive situation, it never goes in that direction. The story opts instead, to show a platonic relationship that confuses the characters and viewer alike. The situation is further complicated by nosey neighbor Foster (Tom Bower) and the appearance of David's fiancee, Linny (Jess Weixler). An implied sex scene between David and Linny is witnessed by Tommie through a curtainless window, causing her to become jealous. The movie a sad ending with fractured adult relationships and young Tommie physically unharmed but emotionally devastated.

In broad daylight a white collar weirdo in front of the girl's friends, in front of a shopping plaza pretends to kidnap a girl who has just asked him for a cigarette in order to "teach her friends a lesson" for putting her up to it (asking for cig). But before grabbing her hand and marching her to his car he gives and lights her a cigarette with his own. Right off the bat unbelievable and creepy. It gets worse. He emotionally abuses her throughout the film and somehow she goes out of state with him for like a week or longer in the midst of him being asked to take a leave from his job. No man would put himself in the position that this character does. Maybe one that is suicidal, homicidal and SHAMELESS. I mean, how could he think that after people seeing his car, his appearance and giving a cigarette to this frail child who looks 10 regardless of the storyline..............how does he think in the middle of a school year that he gets her to skip school to go on a "vacation" with him???.................and it's not like they have any real heartfelt conversation about her situation at home (which really is vague and undeveloped). He is constantly extracting "promises", "deals", "partnership" making the girl (AND VIEWER!!!) deeply unsettled. This film has nothing to offer except a headache or nausea or diarrhea. Some of the acts carried out by this unsympathetic character are the kind of things that a hardened sociopath or serial killer would do. Don't get me started on the people heaping praise on this random-as-hell and emotionally abusive scrapheap. Oh and he spills coffee on her on purpose so he can then carry her to the bathtub and demand that she take a bath. Ya that too. "Take off your SHIRT" 'NO I DONT WANT TO'. "TAKE IT OFF!" your welcome for all the spoilers, I've saved you time and money. Anyone who imagines they've witnessed bonding taking place is merely projecting their own sick desires. Scumbags. Yes, the monster who horribly manipulates the young girl and screams at her to take her shirt off. You've been warned. If you think there is anything sympathetic about David Lamb you are thick in the skull as well as............David Lamb is the profile of a sociopathic predator whom the writers and producers decide to NOT ACTUALLY HAVE A RAPE OR MURDER SCENE even though everything he does SCREAMS predator. Consider that the people heaping praise on this film either: 1. set an emotional trap for you knowingly 2. are narcissistic creeps who don't realize how badly he treats her because they have no awareness of other people's emotional boundaries and needs. I gave you specific examples of what happens rather than an emotional reaction which many reviewers tend to do. Objectively speaking, he treats her terribly. For those of who insist on finding out for yourself, I promise you that after the first 20 minutes it's only gonna become more unsettling than it already was.

Never expected this movie to conflict and touch me in ways I may never understand. While consistently hating the main character, I began to sympathize with the girl's home situation and wishes to run away I've had in my youth. Anywhere between a cautionary tale and a psychological drama, this character story keeps you guessing. The main character is constantly lying, so the unreliable protagonist gives the entire movie an uneasy feeling, which builds suspense and keeps the viewer attached to the little girl and hoping she makes it out alright, and the bittersweet ending had me in tears. I can't think of another movie that made me feel like this one did and for that it gets a perfect score. But it could have been better, they left out some things from the book, and towards the end the plot got messy as it was clear they either had to cut scenes for time or entirely write out certain plotlines related to what little of a climax there is. You think with this material they would up the stakes from the book, rather than minimizing and simplifying them. Other than there is a complex story where the protagonist is also the antagonist and it is somehow pulled off thanks to the poetic source material and conscientious directing.

This was the most uncomfortable movie to watch, but I couldn't stop watching. I was feeling disgusted that the man was brainwashing the girl, in which he was. Yet I felt his pain wanting an innocent love. It was a very twisted but beautiful movie at the same time. The young girl was wonderful in it, meaning her acting. I was surprised to find out it was a novel, so I decided to get it on Audible.com. I am looking forward to listening to it!!! .

The guy is a classic narcissist with NPD, a predator of a different kind, not always purely sexual, but still a machine not a human. Yes they exist. Sex is the easiest way for them to make a connection but that is not necessarily what narcs are primarily after, what they want is to sample human drama and emotions to feed their ego and their fantasy that they are major players and the center of the universe. They sample personalities and human emotions because they have none of their own, and then move on to the next, like a lot of Narcs, his thing is clearly young inexperienced girls, he sees them as beautiful objects to be tasted and discarded when he has used them up and they are no longer perfect. The Narc guy is doing the classic total concentration on one person, sampling the little girl and soon she will be discarded like the previous blond girl and he will move his total concentration on to another victim.