In the remote fields of Iceland live Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason), sheep farmers.  Their flock has been steadily growing over the past two years, but soon a lamb is born that will change their lives.  The couple welcome in the new lamb like their own child, bringing her indoors, dressing her, and naming her Ada.  Living out their lives with their newfound joy, their familiar solitude is interrupted with the arrival of Ingvar’s brother, Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson). 

Released by A24, Lamb is the feature debut for writer/director Valdimar Jóhannsson after making a career working on electrical and camera crews for various productions.  With his co-writer Sjón, the two created a spellbinding dark folk tale that relies on the supernatural to explain the human condition. 

The script is incredibly sparse, but its words were chosen carefully as the three actors all have very defined characters with history and unique personality.  It takes its time to dole out information, frustratingly slow at first, but once the second act hits and we are fully in touch with the world of the film, it becomes find its footing as human drama and the secrets and history revealed come at a more manageable pace. 

The character design for Ada, the lamb, is very well done.  She fits in quite seamlessly into the film and appears very natural.  Credit is due to Rapace, Guðnason, and later Haraldsson for their performances that really sell that Ada is in the frame with them.  Haraldsson slowly overtakes the film as his arc shows the most growth and complexity.  Before he arrives, Rapace does a great job at introducing us to this world that Jóhannsson has created, but it is Haraldsson who challenges the premise and forces answers to the questions we have.       

As the narrative wanders along, it takes on the complicated relationship of the three characters but never falls into the realm of soap opera or melodrama and operates as a unique take on trapped in one place screw turners.  There is a great reveal late in the film regarding Pétur and some of his past endeavors that Jóhannsson loads with so much information about this family and does it without being an exposition dump but an incredibly fun and electric sequence.    

Those moments of levity are short lived as Rapace returns to being our entry point into the film. There was always a haze of pain that surrounded her and now we know why.  With this knowledge, we can better begin to chart her actions and weight the different consequences.  It is hard to say that Jóhannsson’s script ever boils over, but it does get to its most tense and thrilling in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the third act even if it does not quite stick the landing.  It pushes Maria to the absolute limit of her relationship with Ingvar, Pétur, and Ada.          

The biggest fault of Lamb is its insistence upon the supernatural.  From the beginning, the film creates an eerie tone, but where that ultimately leads is rather lackluster and disappointing.  Only vaguely supported by the narrative despite plenty of opportunity to expand upon the lore of the world, Lamb plays out instead like if M. Night Shyamalan directed a Thumbelina inspired film with his signature twist in the last 90 seconds that can kind of be traced back through the narrative but it is really just an uninteresting and uninspired way to end the film quickly.  Even if we are to take the supernatural as a metaphor for something else, it is so thinly fleshed out that it feels quite hollow.  Despite this, Lamb is still an enjoyable arthouse feature that is overflowing with atmosphere and dread.  It certainly stumbles at the end which does detract from the overall enjoyment, but the preceding ninety minutes creates a tightly wound, claustrophobic drama that captures our attention from the opening shot of the frozen tundra and the heavy breathing of someone, something, stalking us through the foggy squall.