Lamb

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.

LAMB is set in the Midwest and its conventions. A middle aged man, beset by adult challenges including the death of a parent, work and crumbling relationships, encounters a young girl whose home has provided no identity or value. The two go on a road trip deeper into the heart of the country and into unexpected inner places. LAMB is risky and challenging exploration of love, our need for it, the unusual places where we find it and the sacrifices it calls for. Oona Laurence as the young girl is superb and deserves consideration for a Best Actress award. The cinematography is evocative. Ross Partridge is to be commended for his integrity, courage and skill in bringing this story to the screen.

From thequickflickcritic.blogspot.com/

First things first. "Lamb" explores a liaison between a male and a female which is unequivocally inappropriate, unhealthy and unsettling. Not to mention illegal. One half of this couple is a 47-year-old man. The other, an 11-year-old girl. And while the bond forged between them never becomes a sexual one, it is a relationship that categorically made me feel consistently uncomfortable and squeamish.

With personal position firmly established and hardly exclusive, what "Lamb" is ultimately ABOUT is two helplessly lost people consumed in a desperate search for someone who cares. And someone to care for. I definitely can never condone the manner in which this compulsion is consummated here. However, I completely understand this fundamental need burning in us all. This is a film that tests in boldly serious and stark terms our limits of what defines such integral human connection.

Ross Partridge writes, directs and stars as David Lamb, a man so emotionally damaged that he sees a child as the savior of his severely scarred soul. Partridge's role is a massively difficult one to deliver upon effectively, constantly balancing precariously as he must upon the most sensitive of fine lines. His personification of David maintains the essential equilibrium demanded throughout, ultimately delivering as he does so an astonishing performance that is at once loathsome as it is emotionally cataclysmic.

Oona Laurence (Southpaw) is positively transcendent. Appearing to be even younger than she is supposed to be here, Laurence infuses her understandably deeply conflicted character of Tommie with an impressively mature perspective intertwined with a naive innocence. She owns the final moments of this movie. They are powerfully effecting. Expect that they will stay with you, as they surely have done with me.

Partridge vividly conveys the evolution of this peculiar pair's partnership through his wholesale contrast in setting. Beginning with a series of scenes from a dispiriting urban underbelly, the director deftly shifts the environment markedly, transporting us to and among the spectacular wide open spaces of the American western prairie. It is a sense of Shangri-La realized-a blissful place of near perfection for the curious couple. And it is a state of being we all know can not realistically be sustained.

"Lamb" will no doubt meet with controversial reception by audiences and critics alike. Be this as it may, Partridge has succeeded mightily in crafting a motion picture that I believe ascends well above the territory of simple shock value and exploitation. And should you choose to experience his story, and can somehow permit yourself, while certainly to not ignore, but rather interpret beyond the inherently troubling subject matter it examines so unflinchingly, you may find, as did I, that you have been uniquely and richly rewarded.

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Ross Partridge directs and stars in "Lamb," a 2015 film following David Lamb (played by Ross Partridge), a man in his late forties who is quickly becoming aware of his disintegrating goodness. He encounters a girl named Tommie (played by Oona Lawrence). Though she's only eleven years old, David is aware that she is in danger of becoming just as defeated by life as he is. The two connect, and a friendship grows. In an effort to save Tommie from becoming just like him, David invites Tommie away from the city and into the country heartland he grew up in. What follows is a journey of self- discovery for both David and Tommie, culminating in an emotional bond that neither of them could have predicted.

The main character's choice to befriend an eleven year old girl is at the center of the film's controversy. The film pays a price for having a protagonist who crosses social sanctioned boundaries in trying to do the right thing, scaring off potential viewers. Partridge was very aware of this controversy, and the ethics of their relationship is one of the continuing topics within the film: Is David going to get in trouble for his behavior? Does he deserve to get in trouble? For the sake of not trying to force my perception of their relationship, I won't try too hard to persuade you one way or another.

It is important, however, to note that while Tommie and David are constantly thrown into circumstances that force them to confront the delicacy of their situation, their relationship never approaches a sexual nature. You needn't worry about David peeking at Tommie in the bathroom, or anything similar.

Ross Partridge and Oona Lawrence embody their characters so naturally. What they do here should barely be called acting. More like being. Partridge is given the complex task of having to convey deep confusion to the audience, but confidence when he's with his costar. Fortunately, he's able to pull this off and articulate David's personal journey at every stage with perfection. Despite her young age, Lawrence demonstrates remarkable acting in such a demanding role, conveying innocence and intelligence simultaneously. More impressive than the acting ability of either individual is the chemistry between the two leads. They aren't the only actors in the film, but still carry the film mostly between the two of them. Fortunately, they carry it just fine.

One element of the film that really surprised me was the cinematography, specifically the number of landscape shots. Even images of the city, which is supposed to represent a metaphorical prison for both characters, look tranquil. This form is consistent throughout the film as the background changes to hotel lobbies to the roadside to the country. These landscape shots were amplified by the music underscoring each scene.

The recurring piano score endowed the film with a sort of innocence, a hopefulness that neither of the protagonists have a surplus of. It's especially helpful early on as Tommie and David's relationship starts to bud. Probably the single best tool the film used to alleviate the uncertainty we feel toward David at the beginning.

Assuming he'd prefer viewers to not be drowned by David's unconventional behavior, I'd suggest to Partridge that he give increased cognizance of Tommie's sad home life to David. The easiest argument against David having ill intentions is that he was trying to save Tommie from wasting away in neglect, and even an unconventional intervention is better than no intervention at all. While we see that David is aware of Tommie's situation, further enunciating that Tommie would be worse off without him would make his actions much more understandable. This would have been much more helpful, not to mention economic, than David or Tommie intermittently commenting, "This is weird. He, he."

Lamb is bold in a way many films claim to be but seldom are. Not everyone is going to accept Partridge's direction, which is understandable. Lamb may be aggressive in how it breaks social norms, but in the wake of Partridge's loud experiment is a delicately crafted film. The liberation afforded to this movie allows for a very honest exploration of good intentions, redemption, and the nature of love, in the process creating a relationship that manages to be both powerful and tender. I'm not sure I've seen anything like it anywhere else in the film world. The closest I can think of would be Leon: The Professional. One thing is for sure, much like David and Tommie are changed by their adventure, you will never be the same after watching this film.

"Lamb" (2015 release; 96 min.) brings the story of David Lamb, a guy down on his luck. As the movie opens, we see David visit his sick father and it's not long afterwards that we learn his father has passed away, and on top that David has been kicked out by his wife, and David's boss tells him he needs to take some time off due to his affair with a co-worker. The next day David gets approached in a parking lot by a young lady who wants a cigarette. The two strike up a conversation, and from there a friendship develops. To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this movie is a labor of love from under-the-radar actor Ross Partridge, who also directs and wrote the script (based on the critically well-received debut novel of the same name by Bonnie Nadzam). Partridge navigates the difficult task of portraying a relationship between a middle-aged man and an 11 yr. old girl, both of them two lost souls looking for some redemption, that can be viewed as just a friendship or maybe something more (platonically). It often makes for unsettling watching, and I will admit I came close to walking out of the theater a couple of times. Oona Lawrence, whom we saw not long ago in "Southpaw", shines as the little girl Tommie. Much of this is also a road movie (they are driving to and then back from David's family cabin way out west somewhere). There are some great side performances, including from Jess Weixler as David's co-worker Linny. I very much enjoyed the movie's score, composed by Daniel Belardinelli.

"Lamb" opened out of the blue today on a single screen for all of Greater Cincinnati without any pre-release hype or advertising. The early evening screening where I saw this at turned out to be a private screening: I literally was the only person there. I can't imagine that this movie will play more than one week in the theater, so if you want to check this out, you'll need to get VOD or eventually the DVD release.