{"id":9400,"date":"2024-11-30T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9400"},"modified":"2024-11-30T12:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:00:03","slug":"lamb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/30\/lamb\/","title":{"rendered":"Lamb"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lamb<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A24\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some bloody violent images, sexuality\/nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Valdimar Johannsson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Valdimar Johannsson and Sjon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: \u00de\u00f3rarinn Gu\u00f0nason\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Eli Arenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 8, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.2M (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Icelandic w\/English subtitles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0There was a time when I probably would have loved the weird Icelandic horror film Lamb<\/strong>. Had it come out 30 years ago when I was in my 20s, I would have been singing its praises to my less cinematically enlightened friends who wouldn\u2019t venture anywhere near a movie with subtitles. Now that I\u2019m in my 50s, I\u2019m beginning to see things from their viewpoint. It would appear that my patience has worn out with art films that go out of their way to be as unconventional as possible. This description definitely applies to Lamb<\/strong>. I\u2019m sure it will have its defenders and that\u2019s great. For me, it\u2019s another pretentious bore from A24.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot, such as it is, centers on an unhappy married couple, Maria (Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Ingvar (Gudnason, White Night Wedding), who run a farm in a remote area of Iceland. They barely talk as they go about their daily routine of plowing their land and feeding their livestock. We come to find out their sadness stems from losing their baby at birth. They\u2019re blessed\/cursed with a surrogate child, a half-lamb\/half-human hybrid birthed by one of their sheep. They take it as their own, name it Ada and care for it like she\u2019s a regular kid. At some point, Ingvar\u2019s brother Petur (Haraldsson, The Witcher) shows up and throws off the new dynamic. He has a thing for Maria, a feeling that isn\u2019t mutual. That\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For simplicity\u2019s sake, I\u2019ll start by telling you what I do like about Lamb<\/strong>. It\u2019s moody and atmospheric. It makes nice use of the beautiful, bleak Icelandic landscapes. The performances are good. That\u2019s it. The rest of it is a crashing bore. Although it runs only 106 minutes, it feels like it goes on forever without end. It drags on and on and on and on and on without making its intended points about loss, family, motherhood and man\u2019s relationship with nature. Director Valdimar Johannsson, in his feature film debut, tries but doesn\u2019t quite get there. It renders the whole exercise pointless and moot.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m just going to be honest and say I didn\u2019t care for Lamb<\/strong>. I struggled to stay awake and couldn\u2019t wait for it to be over. I fought the urge to scream \u201cI WANT MY LIFE BACK!\u201d through most of it. It left me feeling depressed and exhausted to the point where my wife could see something was off when she picked me up afterwards. The thing is I didn\u2019t go into Lamb<\/strong> with a negative attitude. The trailer was both eerie and intriguing. I like the central idea of a traumatized couple raising a freak of nature. The makers do a fine job with the non-CGI hybrid creature and its slow reveal. It has one or two effective moments, but it\u2019s not enough to sustain the entire picture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ultimately, I cannot recommend Lamb<\/strong> even though the small cast does a decent job with their thinly written characters. Initially, the dynamic between them is interesting, but it gets old fast. Also, Johannsson doesn\u2019t expand on it as much as he should have. We don\u2019t have enough to go on. In the end, Lamb<\/strong> feels half-done which is why this review is about half the length of the ones I usually write. That should tell you all you need to know about this disappointing horror-thriller.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lamb (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A24\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some bloody violent images, sexuality\/nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Valdimar Johannsson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Valdimar Johannsson and Sjon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: \u00de\u00f3rarinn Gu\u00f0nason\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Eli Arenson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 8, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.2M (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Spoken in Icelandic w\/English subtitles Rating: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Lamb-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9593,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9400\/revisions\/9593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}