Irish Film Institute -International Film Directory – Film Listing

Lamb

    • Director

      Colin Gregg

    • Credits

      written by Bernard Maclaverty, based on his novel; director of photography, Mike Garfath; edited by Peter Delfgou; music by Van Morrison

    • Principal Cast

      Liam Neeson, Hugh O'Conor, Ian Bannen, Ronan Wilmot and Frances Tomelty

  • Category

    Feature

Michael Lamb (Liam Neeson) is an idealistic young Brother in a west of Ireland reformatory, ill at ease with the brutal regime under which the young inmates live. The recent death of his father and his growing anger at the mistreatment of one of the boys (Hugh O’Conor) prompts him to take dramatic action; cash in his inheritance and flee with the boy to England. With this unconventional relationship between a naïve young cleric and a troubled child at its core, the film is vivid and unsettling – and unlikely to have been made at a later stage when scandals of clerical abuse were rife – with Neeson in his first lead film role and a remarkable debut for Hugh O’Conor (four years before his Oscar nomination for My Left Foot). (Notes by Sunniva O'Flynn.)

110 minutes, Ireland-UK, 1985

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