What’s the difference between ownership and family? A parent may describe a child as “mine,” much in the way they may describe their house, car or television. The connotation differs depending on the thing possessed, and that distinction is at the heart of Lamb. Directed with unnerving confidence by Icelandic filmmaker Valdimar Jóhannsson, the film follows a couple who are desperate for a bigger family, to the point they do not consider the implications of a fateful choice. The economy of characters – along with the inexplicable supernatural premise – give the film the feel of a wicked fairy tale, the sort of story with a conclusion that serves as a parable. If the film is light on scares and incident, Jóhannsson compensates with psychological insight into his flawed characters.
María (Noomi Rapace) and her husband Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) live on a remote farm in Iceland. Aside from a television and radio, they seem utterly cut off from civilization. Their life must be lonely, so they find meaning and comfort through routine. They mind the animals they are raising, and one of their few joys is when a sheep gives birth (the film does not shy away from the messy viscera of birthing animals). Jóhannsson uses a clever reversal to suggest a different birth from all the others: instead of seeing the young animal struggle to breathe and walk, we only see how María and Ingvar react to it. There is something special about this young lamb, and for a while, Jóhannsson uses subtext and suggestion to make us curious about its unique qualities.
From here on out, this review will discuss the nature of this new lamb. Consider this a spoiler warning.
This is not a mere lamb, but a lamb/human hybrid. It has the head of a lamb, and the body of a child. Instead of killing the creature or sending it to a lab, María and Ingvar adopt it as their own. They dress the lamb – who they name Ada – in human clothing. They nurse it and talk to it, with one key image explaining why they become so attached. Ingvar wanders into a barn and pulls out a crib. In other words, they had plans for children that never happened. This section is where Lamb creates an uneasy balance between provocation, empathy and comedy. The film asks us to consider how we might behave in a similar situation, and how different Ada is from an ordinary human. In terms of special effects, Lamb is subtly unnerving. Ada has impulses that are both human and beastly, and while it never speaks, its behaviors are like a shy child.
The conceit hinges on whether the audiences buy María and Ingvar’s devotion. Rapace and Guðnason are convincing because their acceptance is total and never played for laughs. Of course, there are complications with such an unlikely new family. Ingvar’s brother Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) pays an unexpected visit, and he regards Ada with an ordinary mix of shock and disgust. How that subplot resolves has staggering implications about the need to give our love to others. Ada is a cute creature, especially when María bundles her in a blanket, but her exact shape is almost incidental. She is theirs because these sad, lonely adults have a void to fill.
The more intriguing tension involves Ada’s biological parents. Her mother may be an ordinary sheep, except her maternal instincts get in the way of the shared lie María and Ingvar tell themselves. Jóhannsson wants the audience to think about what gives these humans the right to claim Ada as their own, and what it means to claim her without permission. Would-be parents are a common trope nowadays, an easy way to create dramatic tension or an emotional subplot, except here the questions are more primal.
Like other horror films from the distributor A24, Lamb may struggle to find an audience. With few exceptions, it is light on scares and gore, and it takes its time to develop its premise. Despite any potential setbacks, Lamb slowly, inexorably flattens the dominance between the humans and their flock through repeated, intense shots of the sheep. They gaze quietly into the camera, implying some kind of unspeaking moral judgment, so our sympathy for the couple finally drifts toward pity.
Photo courtesy of A24
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