Lamb

This bizarre, slow-burn horror fairy tale from arthouse giant A24 is nothing like "Mary Had A Little Lamb." Patient viewers will enjoy the "WTF!" ending.

A24 has always been known for provocative arthouse films with a distinct look and feel. Some of their most profitable films are their horror offerings, such as "Hereditary," "The Witch," "Midsommar" and "It Comes At Night," all earning worldwide box office jackpots of five to ten times their production budgets.

Their latest offering is an Icelandic supernatural horror film called "Lamb," a very quiet, subtitled entry at this year’s Cannes Films Festival that is one of the strangest films you'll watch in 2021.

Valdimar Johansson's feature-length directorial debut is only 106 minutes long but it feels stretched out, boasting a slow-burn pace that makes "The Green Knight" or "First Cow" feel fast-paced and breezy.

Patient viewers will be eventually be rewarded to some bizarre twists and a bonkers ending that is one of the most memorable scenes in any movie in recent years. But it's a tall mountain to climb to earn that delayed gratification. Yes, I counted and 18 minutes pass before any real action or plot happens, all with hardly any dialogue. That's almost the span of your standard sitcom without commercials. After that, it’s another 20 minutes before the story increases its pace again.

Johansson teams up with poet/novelist Sjon (who is also a co-writer on A24's upcoming Viking film "The Northman" by Robert Eggers) to craft a story about a couple living on a remote sheep farm in the vast nothingness. The movie is essentially a visual poem. This plain couple barely speak a word to each other as they muddle through their monotonous daily chores with a sense of grief and longing in their actions. The painful history is hinted at in a little too on-the-nose conversation about time travel and it’s revealed when a crib is shown but no child is present.

Noomi Rapace (you know her from the Swedish version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the "Alien" prequel "Prometheus") and Hilmir Snær Guðnason (an Icelandic voice actor mostly) stumble upon a strange gift from nature one day in a very unusual newborn lamb.

The couple wraps the baby in a blanket and treat it as they would a human child, concealing the jarring reveal of some – at times photorealistic, at times laughable – special effects.

They seem content in their stable home life until the husband's brother comes to visit and upends their happy family. The plot eventually cranks forward in the final 30 minutes of the film after long stretches where the director belabors a point and hammers down the themes.

The real main course of this absurdist feast is a vivid climax that uses a CGI villain to attack the senses and leave your pondering, "What did I just watch?" Without spoiling it, I must say your enjoyment is 100 percent dependent on how much you love this ending and whether you feel it's a strong enough payoff for the wait.

Some will feel the big reveal to be too strange or not satisfying enough. Like waiting 2 hours for a meal at a restaurant only to be eventually served a small portion of an exotic delicacy only for foodies.

The good new is that while the wait can be excruciating, it's a beautiful slow ride. Eli Arenson's cinematography is gorgeous and, like A24's recent outing "The Green Knight," some of backdrops in this movie look like they should be framed and hung on a wall. Þórarinn Guðnason's music sets the appropriate tension and suspense, as if something threatening is lurking behind the happy family.

The acting is superb with Rapace as the clear standout.

Romanian film legend Bela Tarr is an executive producer and Johannson previously studied under him as well, so if you're familiar with his work you have an idea of what to expect.

Johannson shows promise as a director but as a screenwriter I'd say he has better concepts than execution. The lack of plot or dialogue really stretched the limits of one's patience. It might not have broke but it certainly bent as far as it could. The screenplay really frames the story as a dark fairy tale with surprising amounts of sweetness and beauty but it struggles in its attempt to highlight two very different themes, one about family dynamics and the other about man robbing nature.

As long as you don't end up counting the sheep, perhaps you can stay awake long enough for this slow-burn horror fable to enjoy the crazy ending. Ewe won't regret it.