If there was one cult in the world straight women would have to join, wouldn’t it be the one where you could have sex with Michiel Huisman out in the gorgeous, secluded woods of Ireland?
An actor no stranger to eerie cult films (Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation), in The Other Lamb Huisman is the Jesus-like figure who lures women out into the middle of nowhere to become his wives. His cult of women rest on his every word, calling him their Shepherd, and his daughters, aka “lambs,” know none the better.
But director Malgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb doesn’t follow Huisman: it focuses on one of his eldest daughters, Selah (Raffey Cassidy), who is slowly starting to realize the only life she’s ever known is suffocating. The yarn Shepherd has woven starts to unravel the more she converses with the cast away broken wife (Denise Gough). Big eyed and innocent, Selah is the only daughter who remarkably looks like Shepherd, although everyone seems to comment that she looks so much like her deceased mother.
This striking resemblance, predictably, is a taboo turn on for Shepherd, who seems to favor Selah over all of the other daughters. He twirls strands of her hair that escape from her braid as they go on secluded walks in the tangled trees. It’s an act that should feel inky, but in a cult space it feels familiar, almost tired. Immediately it’s easy to peg where this slow-paced film is heading. Unless you are into the warped imagery of trees and dead animals, it can seem like an incredible slog like the many hikes the women have to trudge through to reach the pinnacle “Eden.”
The Other Lamb
U.S. Premiere
Wed., Sept. 25, 11am
This article appears in September 20 • 2019.