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Tender And Unnerving, 'Lamb' Brings To Mind Lolita

For anyone who's read Vladimir Nabokov's classic and ever-controversial "Lolita," Ross Partridge's Lamb will feel like familiar territory. Although the film is based off a different book by Bonnie Nadzam, its story of a man who basically abducts an 11-year-old girl on a journey to America's heartland is gripping, lyrical and often unnerving. What makes it so uncomfortable is that the work constantly asks you to wonder about a romance between a man and a child – and if such a thing can ever be something other than morally atrocious.

The director plays the film's Humbert Humbert persona, a Midwestern businessman named David Lamb. With an ill-fitting suit on his slim frame, Partridge appears to swagger through the ruins of his character's life, allowing him to be an everyman as well as something of a romantic lead. We're introduced to Lamb in the midst of crisis: His marriage is shattered, he's lying constantly to his love-starved mistress, his job appears soul-suckingly dismal, and his dad just died. Surprisingly, Lamb doesn't despair. He's a by-the-bootstraps kind of guy who just wants to figure out what's going on in his life. But before he can begin on that quest, he meets a young girl named Tommie (played by an impressive Oona Laurence).

The two meet when the 11-year-old approaches the businessman in a parking lot and asks for a cigarette. It doesn't take long for the 40-something childless smoker to realize that the girl's punk friends put her up to it, and he coerces Tommie into playing along in a mock kidnapping. That terrible idea (the first of many here) leads to Lamb reprimanding Tommie for hanging out with those kids and he drops her off at home, where her parents are mostly concerned with bingeing on TV and alcohol. A few days later, the two run into each other again and, before long, a father-daughter (or perhaps teacher-student) relationship develops. Then another sort of mock kidnapping occurs.

Lamb invites the 11-year-old on "a vacation" to his late father's cabin in the Rockies. He poetically tells her how he wants to show her America's secret heart, which he likely considers synonymous with his own. Lamb even goes to lengths to let the girl know she can leave whenever she wants, giving her cab money to do so. Still, things get weird, and quickly. A scene in a hotel room where Lamb forces the girl into a cold shower to rinse off spilled coffee is particularly uncomfortable, as it shows the extent to which Lamb knows Tommie is a child and yet has no clue how to address her emotional and physical needs. Before long, we begin to hate Lamb, as he drags this girl through his fantasies of suffering, romance and American beauty. Yet, surprisingly, Partridge is able to keep his character from becoming an absolute villain.

Unlike Humbert Humbert, Lamb doesn't physically abuse his nymphet. His emotional manipulation of her, however, essentially robs her of her childhood, as she's forced to keep his secrets and obey a pathetic man whose life is far more broken than he realizes. By the end, we're left watching emotions collide in teary-eyed exchanges that are both tender and disturbing. What's raised are questions about quasi-platonic adult-child relationships and what they do to those who are unluckily caught up in them. To be clear, Lamb is not judgmental, a quality Nabokov would have appreciated. This film is not for the squeamish, as Tommie is not necessarily the lamb hinted at in the title. She desires to be treated like an adult, and the tragedy lies in that it's up to her conflicted 40-something-year-old admirer to decide whether or not she is.

Lamb is playing at AMC Eden Prairie.

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