Lamb Proves That Indie Doesn't Equal Quality
Film: Lamb (2015). Young Actress: Oona Laurence, age 11.
It's depressing to me that while it's getting so hard to find good roles for women (see Rachel McAdams or Winona Ryder) and people of color (see the Every Word Spoken series or recent Academy Awards), Hollywood still loves churning out movies about white men getting their lives together. Wish I Was Here and Infinitely Polar Bear expect us to admire Zach Braff and Mark Ruffalo for learning basic childcare while their wives work hard and make huge sacrifices (women are rarely allowed to be crappy parents like men are). In We Bought a Zoo and Southpaw, Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhall have to restart their lives after the wives who've been been taking care of them suddenly die. I could go on in this vein ( Begin Again, The Benefactor, Black or White) but let's talk about Lamb.
Tommie meets David
In Lamb, the worst of white men finding themselves meets the worst of the indie/art movie genre. The thin, implausible plot involves David, a lonely, middle-aged man (Ross Partridge) who befriends a lonely, neglected young girl, Tommie (Oona), living in his gritty urban neighborhood. They first meet when some older kids dare Tommie to approach him and ask him for a cigarette. David tells her that his name is Gary, and she believes him for the rest of the movie. The interaction between them is slightly interesting at first.
What kills the film is when David impulsively decides to take Tommie on a camping trip to his late father's remote cabin. They set off without packing, telling anyone, or even leaving a note. On their first night in a hotel room, David tells her, "This will look a lot like a kidnapping to other people." For every day of their journey, the writing gets worse and the lack of anything happening gets more and more frustrating. So much of the movie is one pointless scene after another; for example, in one scene, David sticks a penny on Tommie's forehead and says, "The year I was born is now on your beautiful head," followed by a long shot of her staring at him. There are also some failed attempts at depth via shallow shock value: Tommie watches David having sex with a coworker, and she freaks out when he tries to undress her after she spills hot coffee on herself. (The coffee scene is eyeroll-worthy for its unrealistic execution, by the way. Tommie barely spills a few drops on herself before David screams, "You've got it all over you!")
David and Tommie outside his cabin in the mountains
In films as pointless and pedantic as this one, it falls heavily on the cast to make it worth watching, and Lamb's cast fails hard at this. Elle Fanning's Somewhere (2011) was similarly plotless, but Elle gave such a talented performance that it never felt as boring as Lamb. Oona isn't a bad actress, but she isn't anywhere near Elle's caliber, and she just isn't the right choice for a film like this one. Her role in Southpaw felt better suited to her.
Other reviews of Oona's films: Southpaw (2015).
It's depressing to me that while it's getting so hard to find good roles for women (see Rachel McAdams or Winona Ryder) and people of color (see the Every Word Spoken series or recent Academy Awards), Hollywood still loves churning out movies about white men getting their lives together. Wish I Was Here and Infinitely Polar Bear expect us to admire Zach Braff and Mark Ruffalo for learning basic childcare while their wives work hard and make huge sacrifices (women are rarely allowed to be crappy parents like men are). In We Bought a Zoo and Southpaw, Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhall have to restart their lives after the wives who've been been taking care of them suddenly die. I could go on in this vein ( Begin Again, The Benefactor, Black or White) but let's talk about Lamb.
Tommie meets David
In Lamb, the worst of white men finding themselves meets the worst of the indie/art movie genre. The thin, implausible plot involves David, a lonely, middle-aged man (Ross Partridge) who befriends a lonely, neglected young girl, Tommie (Oona), living in his gritty urban neighborhood. They first meet when some older kids dare Tommie to approach him and ask him for a cigarette. David tells her that his name is Gary, and she believes him for the rest of the movie. The interaction between them is slightly interesting at first.
What kills the film is when David impulsively decides to take Tommie on a camping trip to his late father's remote cabin. They set off without packing, telling anyone, or even leaving a note. On their first night in a hotel room, David tells her, "This will look a lot like a kidnapping to other people." For every day of their journey, the writing gets worse and the lack of anything happening gets more and more frustrating. So much of the movie is one pointless scene after another; for example, in one scene, David sticks a penny on Tommie's forehead and says, "The year I was born is now on your beautiful head," followed by a long shot of her staring at him. There are also some failed attempts at depth via shallow shock value: Tommie watches David having sex with a coworker, and she freaks out when he tries to undress her after she spills hot coffee on herself. (The coffee scene is eyeroll-worthy for its unrealistic execution, by the way. Tommie barely spills a few drops on herself before David screams, "You've got it all over you!")
David and Tommie outside his cabin in the mountains
In films as pointless and pedantic as this one, it falls heavily on the cast to make it worth watching, and Lamb's cast fails hard at this. Elle Fanning's Somewhere (2011) was similarly plotless, but Elle gave such a talented performance that it never felt as boring as Lamb. Oona isn't a bad actress, but she isn't anywhere near Elle's caliber, and she just isn't the right choice for a film like this one. Her role in Southpaw felt better suited to her.
Other reviews of Oona's films: Southpaw (2015).