''The Other Lamb'' is a 2019

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by

Małgorzata Szumowska Małgorzata Szumowska (; born 26 February 1973) is a Polish film director, screenwriter and producer, born in Kraków. Her 2013 film '' In the Name Of'' received the Teddy Award for Best Feature at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival, an ...

and written by C.S. McMullen. It stars

Raffey Cassidy Raffey Camomile Cassidy (born 12 November 2001) is an English actress. She has had roles in films including ''Snow White and the Huntsman'' (2012), ''Mr Selfridge'' (2013), ''Tomorrowland'' (2015) and ''The Killing of a Sacred Deer'' (2017). Ea ...

Michiel Huisman Michiel Huisman (; born 18 July 1981) is a Dutch actor who has acted in both Dutch and English-language TV series and films. Huisman began his career in the Dutch soap opera ''Goede tijden, slechte tijden'' (1998). He later played in the Dutc ...

and

Denise Gough Denise Gough (born 28 February 1980) is an Irish actress. She is the elder sister of the actress Kelly Gough. She has worked in film, television, video games and theatre. Gough is a double Olivier Award winner. Early life Born in Ennis, Cou ...

Plot summary

Selah is a teenage girl who is living in a remote forest compound belonging to a

polygamist Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

. The cult's messianic leader, the Shepherd, is the only male in the group. The women are divided into two groups: the younger Sisters, who dress in shades of blue, and the older Wives, who dress in reddish tones. The group raises sheep for food and sacrificial rituals. As she matures, Selah has become more of a focus of the Shepherd's attention, and she appears drawn to him. She frequently wonders about her mother, who died giving birth to her. After fighting with one of the Sisters, Selah is ordered to deliver leftovers to a small, dark hut, where

menstruating The menstrual cycle is a series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system that make pregnancy possible. The ovarian cycle controls the production and release of eggs a ...

females are sent because they are considered "unclean". Here she encounters Wife Sarah, who was banished to the hut for unspecified reasons. Sarah, whose chest is covered with scars, warns Selah of the Shepherd's violent tendencies. One night, Selah overhears a police officer telling the Shepherd that the group must leave. The Shepherd announces that he will be leading the women on a journey to a new home. During the walk, the Wives discover that Selah is menstruating, and she is forced to the back of the group with banished Wife, Sarah. Selah befriends Sarah, who explains that she and Selah's mom were the Shepherd's first two wives. Sarah tells Selah that her mother did not die in childbirth, but instead contracted an infection a few days afterward and died of sepsis because the Shepherd would not take her to the hospital. Sarah admits that she has no faith in the Shepherd, but stays because she has no place else to go. During the arduous journey, Selah begins to doubt his judgement. When she sees a car driving on a road, she has a fantasy of herself inside it, dressed as a normal teenager. During the strenuous hike one of the pregnant Wives goes into labor, and she dies in childbirth. The Shepherd plucks the dead Wife's grieving young child off of the unlit funeral pyre, and throws her to the ground. After the funeral, Sarah tells Selah that she is leaving with the baby, who the Shepherd had wanted to abandon in the wilderness because the baby was "born wrong". Sarah reveals that the Shepherd wanted to abandon the healthy baby because "there can only be one ram in a flock". Meanwhile, the Shepherd beats one of the Sisters, Tamar, for refusing to lead the group after announcing that she spotted a potentially promising location ahead, further eroding Selah's trust. The group arrives at a forested valley with a large lake, which the Shepherd declares will be their new Eden. The Sisters’ faith has been shaken by the journey, but the Shepherd rebaptizes the older Sisters. Selah has visions of him attempting to drown her. Around the campfire the Wives decline dinner, stating they are fasting for their ritual the next day. That night, he calls Selah to his tent and

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

s her. She fantasizes about the Sisters killing the Shepherd. The next morning, the Sisters awake to find the Wives missing. They go to the lake to find the Shepherd kneeling near the Wives' robes. He tells them that the Wives have ascended into a new life and the Sisters must replace them. Selah confronts him, telling him, "You are not our shepherd!" He smacks her and she hits him back. Some time later, police officers discover the bodies of the Wives washed up on the shore of the lake. They also discover the Shepherd's dead body suspended between two trees, a pair of ram's horns placed on his head like a

faun The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology. Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their c ...

. The Sisters, led by Selah, congregate at the waterfall near their original compound.

Cast

as Selah *

as Shepherd *

as Sarah * Kelly Campbell as Hannah * Eve Connolly as Adriel * Isabelle Connolly as Eloise

Production

In February 2019, it was announced

and

had joined the cast of the film, with

directing from a screenplay by C.S. McMullen.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began that same month in

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by t ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on 6 September 2019. Shortly after,

IFC Midnight IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its Sun ...

and

Mubi Mubi (; stylized as MUBI; The Auteurs before 2010) is a global curated film streaming platform, production company and film distributor. Mubi produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusivel ...

acquired US and UK distribution rights to the film, respectively. It was released in the United States on 3 April 2020 and was released in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2020.

Reception

Box office

''The Other Lamb'' grossed a total of $7,385 worldwide ($6,024 in the United States, and $1,361 internationally).

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has an approval rating of based on reviews from critics, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads "Smartly directed by Malgorzata Szumowska, ''The Other Lamb'' uses a young woman's coming-of-age story to explore the powerful hold cults can have on their followers." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

it has weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Other Lamb, The 2019 films 2019 horror films American coming-of-age films American horror films Belgian coming-of-age films Belgian horror films Films about cults Irish coming-of-age films Irish horror films Films directed by Małgorzata Szumowska Zentropa films Films set in forests Films shot in County Wicklow 2010s feminist films Films shot in Ireland 2010s English-language films 2010s American films Fauns in popular culture