Directed by Malgorzata Szumowska
Written by C.S. McMullen
Starring Michiel Huisman, Raffey Cassidy, Denise Gough and Eve Connolly
MPAA Rating: R for violence, nudity and disturbing sexual situations
Running time: 1 hour and 37 minutes

by Audrey Callerstrom

The titular object of The Other Lamb is a gruesome sight. The film is about a cult of “Daughters” and “Wives” led by a man referred to as Shepherd (Michiel Huisman, Daaro Naharis on “Game of Thrones”). Selah (Raffey Cassidy) is a Daughter whose mother, a Wife, died during childbirth. The Daughters wear rich blue jackets and dresses; the Wives wear red. The cult owns a herd of sheep which they breed for meat and presumably milk. Selah is tasked with watching over the birth of a lamb. High on an isolated hill, far away from the rest of cult, Selah falls asleep. She wakes to find the lamb covered in blood, skin pulled from its bones and on the edge of death. Its eyes are black and empty. It looks like it should still be inside the womb, growing and developing. Wild dogs killed the lamb while Selah slept.

It’s a gruesome sight that you can’t shake, as are many other shots, visuals and scenery within the film. The film takes place in the U.S., as we can tell by accents and a glimpse of an American flag on a cop’s uniform, but the mountains and trees are unmistakably Europe, specifically Ireland. All of the hills, the terrain, the bodies of water, the trees, all untouched by Man. Everything is so still. No broken branches, no cultivated soil, no ridges in the side of a lake where someone docks their boat. It’s breathtaking. When they come to a lake, Shepherd tells his “flock” that they have arrived at Eden (also known as Paradise, or the “Garden of God” in the Bible). And you’re with him. There’s no question, this is Eden.

Beautiful shots and scenery do not a complete film make, and The Other Lamb is lacking on a number of levels. In 2020, after multiple seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, the concept of women ruled by man and used only for breeding purposes feels stale. Lead actress Cassidy does well with the role, but she never fully or outwardly questions Shepherd, so it’s not engaging to follow her character’s evolution, such that it is. The only nuanced character who questions Shepherd outright is Sarah, the “Cursed Wife” (Denise Gough, an Irish theater actress). We first meet Sarah as she is isolated in a hut during her period for being “unclean”, as all the women are. Sarah’s chest is covered in scars, and while the other women wear braided crowns, Shepherd keeps Sarah’s hair short as “punishment for vanity.” When Selah asked Sarah why she hasn’t left, Sarah remarks, defeated, “I’ve been here for so long. I don’t even know who I am anymore.” Gough is the film’s stand out performance. As the rest of the wives remain complacent and obedient, Sarah maintains some semblance of individuality. Huisman as Shepherd doesn’t come off as a cult leader; more like a delusional and violent rock star persuaded by evil. Think of John Hawkes in Martha Marcy May Marlene, Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master. It’s not simply that Shepherd is conventionally attractive, but we only know one level of his evil. We don’t know how he started this cult, when, why. We never see him interact in private with any of the other Wives or Daughters except Selah. He clearly favors Selah among all the other women, which makes Selah’s rise against him less believable.

But this is an exceptionally well shot and curated film, visually speaking. In order to establish a perimeter in the forest, yarn is wrapped around trees, and it’s so taut and carefully spaced that it looks like white lasers. Women in white robes dance underwater. A standout scene shows Selah, walking alongside a road with the rest of the cult, imagining herself in the back of a nearby car, as a normal teenager in a letter jacket rolling her eyes at her parents. But the film wears out its welcome with dream sequences and slow zooms. Selah, who has visibly gotten her period, stands in the middle of a forest. Slow zoom. Shepherd holds a lamb and slits its throat. Slow zoom. Selah imagines herself screaming and nothing comes out. The intention is poetic, but in practice, it feels like walking through an art exhibit, and not in a good way. Where this film faults in terms of character development and the evolution of its story, it almost, but not quite, makes up for it with beautiful scenery and foliage. Now more than ever, as we are restricted to our homes, to a small number of rooms, to a certain radius from our front door, it’s comforting, if a little bittersweet, to be immersed in a land so far away.

Available on demand Friday, April 3.