Ross Partridge, Oona Laurence
“LAMB” My rating: B-
136 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
“Uncomfortable” doesn’t begin to describe “Lamb,” a drama about a 47-year-old man’s obsession with an 11-year-old girl.
Creeped out yet?
The good news is that Ross Partridge‘s film is anything but exploitative and that the relationship depicted is not sexual…although there are enough stranger/danger moments to fuel a month’s worth of after-school specials.
In addition to directing the film, Partridge — who looks like he could be Dermot Mulroney’s stand in — wrote the screenplay (adapting Bonnie Nadzam‘s novel) and plays the leading role of David Lamb, a middle-aged nobody losing his grip.
Lamb works in a job he doesn’t care about (maybe he’s in the insurance game). His wife has thrown him out of the house and he’s living in a Chicago motel. His alcoholic, shut-in father has just died. And he’s having a joyless affair with Linny (Jess Weixler of TV’s “The Good Wife”), a co-worker half his age.
He meets seventh grader Tommie (“Southpaw’s” Oona Laurence) when she tries to pick him up in a convenience store parking lot on a dare from her friends. Lamb deduces that this waif hasn’t a clue about the trouble that could come of such a lark and befriends her.
Tommie’s mom and stepdad are addicted to TV and joy juice, so apparently they don’t immediately notice when Tommie takes up Lamb’s offer of a road trip from Chicago to his late father’s long-abandoned vacation cabin the foothills of the Rockies.
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