| Lamb | |
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 Icelandic poster | |
| Directed by | Valdimar Jóhannsson |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Eli Arenson |
| Edited by | Agnieszka Glińska |
| Music by | Þórarinn Guðnason |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 107 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
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| Language | Icelandic |
| Box office | $3.2 million |
Lamb (Icelandic:Dýrið,lit. 'The Animal') is a 2021folk horror film directed byValdimar Jóhannsson, whoco-wrote the screenplay withSjón. It marks Valdimar'sfeature-length directorial debut and starsNoomi Rapace andHilmir Snær Guðnason as a couple who adopt a mysterioushuman-sheephybrid as their own.
Aninternationalco-production between Iceland, Sweden, and Poland,[2] the film features Rapace and Hungarian filmmakerBéla Tarr as executive producers.[3] After premiering at the2021 Cannes Film Festival, the film was released bySena in Iceland on 24 September 2021,[4] Gutek Film in Poland on 31 December 2021,[5] and TriArt Film in Sweden on 11 March 2022.[6]
Lamb received positive reviews and grossed $3.2 million at the box office.[7] It was Iceland's entry forBest International Feature Film at the94th Academy Awards, and made the shortlist but was ultimately not nominated.[8]
A herd of horses in Iceland is spooked by an unknown, loudly-breathing entity that makes its way to a barn. Later, farmer María and her husband, Ingvar, are shocked when one of their pregnant sheep births a human–sheephybrid with a mostly human body but a lamb's head and right arm.
María and Ingvar take the hybrid infant in as their own. Naming her Ada after their deceased daughter, the couple care for her as their own child. The ewe that is Ada's biological mother misses her child, loitering outside the couple's home in an attempt to contact Ada.
Ada goes missing and is later found next to the ewe. Shortly after, María kills the ewe and buries her body. Unbeknownst to her, Ingvar's roving brother Pétur, who arrives at the farmhouse shortly before the killing, witnesses the incident before sleeping in the barn.
Pétur, who makes sexual advances towards María, is very disturbed by Ada, considering her "an animal, not a child". Ingvar claims that the whole situation has given them happiness. Petur is increasingly angered and disturbed by the couple's attachment to Ada. While everyone else is asleep, Pétur takes her on an early morning walk with the intention of shooting her. However, he has a tearful change of heart and is later seen soundly sleeping with Ada and soon becomes an uncle to her.
One evening, while María, Pétur, and Ingvar are having a drunken party, Ada witnesses the unknown entity from before near the barn. The entity kills the family's dog before taking the family's gun. After the party, a drunk Ingvar goes to bed. Pétur makes sexual advances toward María once again. When she rejects his advances, Pétur reveals that he witnessed her killing Ada's sheep mother and tries to blackmail María into having sex with him by threatening to reveal this to Ada. María pretends to be seduced by Pétur in order to lock him in a storage room.
The next morning, María unlocks the storage room and drives Pétur to a bus stop. Sending him away, she insists she is committed to a new start with her family. After waking up to find María and Pétur missing, Ingvar takes Ada to fix the broken tractor left halfway to the lake, but the attempt is unsuccessful. On their way back home, the entity, revealed to be a ram/man hybrid and Ada's biological father, emerges and shoots Ingvar in the neck before taking a tearful Ada with him and walking away into the wilderness.
María returns home and finds that Ingvar and Ada are missing. She searches for the two, discovers Ingvar before he dies, and despairs at the loss of her husband and new child. María tearfully searches the wilderness in vain.
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In February 2019,Noomi Rapace andHilmir Snær Guðnason had joined the cast of the film, with Valdimar Jóhannsson directing from a screenplay he wrote alongsideSjón.[9]
In June 2020, the film was sold acrossEurope in theNew Europe Film Sales agency. The film was picked up by distributors in Czech Republic (Artcam), France (The Jokers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Slovakia (ASFK), Germany (Koch Films), Poland (Gutek Film), Benelux (The Searchers), Hungary (Vertigo), Austria (Filmladen), Denmark (Camera Film), Lithuania (Scanorama),former Yugoslavia (Five Stars/Demiurg), Estonia (Must Käsi) and Latvia (Kino Bize) withMUBI acquiring the distribution rights for Latin America (excluding Mexico), Turkey, India, the UK and Ireland.[10][11][12][13][14] In July 2021,A24 acquired North American distribution rights to the film.[15]
The film had its world premiere on 13 July 2021 as part of the official selection at the2021 Cannes Film Festival in theUn Certain Regard section.[16] It was released in the United States on 8 October 2021.[citation needed] The film also had a special screening ofBFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2021[17]
In the United States and Canada,Lamb was released alongsideNo Time to Die and earned $1 million from 583 theaters, finishing seventh and marking the best-ever opening weekend for an Icelandic film in the U.S.[18]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 86% of 189 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Darkly imaginative and brought to life by a pair of striking central performances,Lamb shears expectations with its singularly wooly chills."[19]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[20]
David Fear ofRolling Stone described the film as "the odd, unsettling, soon-to-be-your-cult-movie-of-choice straight outta Iceland", and wrote: "It's the sweetest, most touching waking nightmare you've ever experienced."[21] Jeannette Catsoulis ofThe New York Times called the film an "atmospheric debut feature", and added that it "plays like a folk tale and thrums like a horror movie." She wrote: "Slow-moving and inarguably nutty,Lamb nevertheless wields itsatavistic power with the straightest of faces".[22] Michael O'Sullivan ofThe Washington Post also described the film as a "haunting, atmospheric feature debut", and wrote: "Johannsson has a way of imbuing everything — animate and inanimate, even an empty doorway — with a kind of living, breathing spirit." He gave the film a score of 3/4 stars.[23] Katie Walsh of theLos Angeles Times wrote, "Ominous mountains look down upon the pastoral arena where this fantastical yet meditative rural drama plays out; it's a modern folk tale about the strange realities of life and death that such a closeness to nature affords."[24]Joe Morgenstern ofThe Wall Street Journal described the film as "a shaggy lamb story expertly told."[25]Kevin Maher ofThe Times gave the film 4/5 stars, writing, "The director, Valdimar Johannsson, treats the admittedly ridiculous material with a convincing, deadpan seriousness and is supported at every step by his star performer on impeccable form."[26]
Richard Brody ofThe New Yorker was more critical of the film, saying that it "preens and strains to be admired even as it reduces its characters to pieces on a game board and its actors to puppets."[27] Barry Hertz ofThe Globe and Mail criticized the film's ending as being "like a parody of anA24 horror movie", and wrote, "I won't make the obvious joke and say it'sbaaad. But its sheep thrills are mutton to write home about, either."[28] Alison Willmore ofVulture wrote, "By the time the final act rolls around,Lamb approaches the idea that there's a price that must be paid with a shrugging diffidence rather than impending doom. It's such an underwhelming conclusion to a film with such a compelling start."[29]
The film ranks on Rotten Tomatoes' Best Horror Movies of 2021.[30]
