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Oona Laurence is a remarkable actor. Barely a tween (and a small tween at that), she is technically a child actor. But because she’s hampered by none of the people-pleasing tics that doom most kid performers, it feels more accurate to simply describe her as an actor; if she chooses to, she’ll probably be just as deft at using her age as an instrument seventy years from now. Already she can look like an old woman in repose, which I attribute to the old-soul sadness she channels in films like last year’s “Southpaw” and “I Smile Back.” It is the grief of children who’ve already learned to cry without expecting comfort, and she takes it to new levels as the protagonist of “Lamb,” the adaptation of Bonnie Nadzam’s unsettling 2011 novel.

Laurence plays Tommie, the runty eleven-year-old daughter of parents (Lindsay Pulsipher and Scoot McNairy) so checked out that they don’t even bother to look up from their beers when she comes home in the middle of the night. She’s ripe, in other words, for some adult attention, which comes in the form of forty-seven-year-old David Lamb (Ross Partridge, tripling as writer/director), whom she approaches in a parking lot on a dare. Decked out in heels and a forlorn pink purse, she asks him for a cigarette while her friends titter; ostensibly to teach her a lesson, he hustles her into his SUV and then drops her off at home. Continue Reading →