lambHow hard do you wish for different circumstances? The answer likely depends on how you feel about your present situation. If you’re happy then you might just be wishing for some changes around the edges, some fine-tuning to your life to push your happiness up a couple notches. If you’re in an abusive relationship or have serious issues surrounding you then you may dream several notches above where you are and wish for the impossible. It depends greatly, too, on what awareness you have of a life other than your own.

The new movie Lamb is about an unusual relationship between two people who are dreaming of different circumstances. Tommie (Oona Laurence) is a young girl who’s never known anything but the streets of the city but who dreams of open fields, horses and more. One day she meets David (Ross Partridge), who is dealing with his own issues. The two strike up an unlikely friendship that culminates in David taking Tommie out to the country so she can see the things she’s only dreamed about. But the journey opens up some secrets for the both of them that quickly change everything.

The Posters

The movie’s one poster shows David, with Tommie on his back, walking through a field of wheat or something like that. Both of them have kind of wistful looks on their faces, as if they’re enjoying a moment they both know will end too soon. Toward the top are a few pull quotes from early reviews, likely from the movie’s debut at SXSW. Below the title treatment we’re told “Innocence walks a fine line,” which tells us a bit about the story and the relationship between the two characters.

Overall the poster sells a moody, contemplative character drama. Any time you put an older man and a young girl in the same image you’re going to invite assumptions about whether or not it’s a predatory relationship between the two and the tagline plays into that to some extent. But overall it’s a good poster that sells the central component of the movie, which is that these two are connected in some manner.

The Trailers

The trailer starts out by introducing us to Tommie as she starts talking to a stranger outside a convenience store, a guy who turns out to be David. Eventually we see they come across each other again and they strike up a friendship, each filling some sort of hole in the others’ life. They begin fantasizing about better places and better lives and one day he suggests they go find a place like that. So they set out on a bit of an adventure. But not everything is as it seems and the trailer ends by hinting that the illusions both have built up are about to come crumbling down.

It’s a solid trailer that shows the movie as a quiet character drama that isn’t creepy in how it presents the friendship between the two leads, but definitely shows that something is off. It leaves it to the audience to watch the movie, though, to find out what that is.

Online and Social

As far as I could find there was no stand-alone web presence for the movie, not even on the website for The Orchard, the distribution company handling it. Instead it relied on profiles on Facebook and Twitter to reach an online audience. Both of those were fine, sharing images that counted down to the release date, resurfacing reviews from the film’s SXSW debut and linking to the limited amount of press and publicity done by the stars.

Advertising and Cross-Promotions

Nothing that I’ve come across or found. Limited release like this isn’t going to have a huge TV or online ad budget.

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Media and Publicity

Most of the film’s publicity came from its’ SXSW debut earlier this year, where it earned decent buzz and garnered a few positive reviews. Partridge made an appearance on “Last Call With Carson Daly” but that’s about it on the publicity front. The film also appeared at the Torino Film Festival in November for one last push.

Overall

The campaign here sells a movie that has a lot that’s going on under the surface. Fans of movies about unlikely or awkward relationships will likely gravitate toward it quickly but others may be turned off by the assumption – never stated or even hinted at in the marketing but more the result of a societal narrative that informs some readings of these situations – that the friendship between David and Tommie does turn predatory at some point. Basically anytime you put an older man and a young girl together on screen, the default assumption is going to be that he abuses her in some way, though the campaign seemingly takes pains to not show that happening.

Whether or not that’s indicative of the rest of the movie’s story remains to be seen, at least to those of us outside the festival circuit who haven’t already seen it. For those, as I mentioned above, who are more drawn to character-driven relationship dramas there’s a lot to like here, even if the campaign never really achieves escape velocity with little to draw it apart from other small movies receiving limited release.

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