The Lobster
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015, Ireland, UK, Greece, France, Netherlands, USA, Colour, 114 mins, Certificate: 15
“One day, as he was playing golf, he thought that it is more difficult to pretend that you do have feelings when you don’t than to pretend you don’t have feelings when you do”, says the Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz) at some point, in this weird, extraordinary, darkly satirical, at times brutal, yet strangely compassionate and satisfying anti-romantic comedy.
Where ideas, questions, dilemmas, feelings and anxieties about love, relationships and society’s restrictive obsession with (binary) systems and structures are thrown up in the air to be twisted and blown away before they are inventively reconstituted into a rebellious and original cinematic whole that transcends genres, preconceptions and expectations.
Lanthimos’ (Dogtooth, The Favourite) first English-language film, was nominated for an Oscar (for Best Original Screenplay, co-written with Efthymis Filippou) and a BAFTA (for Best British Film), is gifted with an exceptional international cast, led by Colin Farrell, Weisz, Olivia Colman, Léa Seydoux, John C. Reilly, Angeliki Papoulia and Ben Whishaw, and is set in a near, uncomfortably familiar, dystopian future.
When single people are expected by law to check in The Hotel, where they have to find a partner within 45 days and escape the fate of being turned into an animal of their own choosing. Although, this is not a punishment, merely another opportunity to find love as another species.
Are you laughing, crying, or gasping in shock? All of the above perhaps?
Reviews:
“A wickedly funny protest against societal preference for nuclear coupledom that escalates, by its own sly logic, into a love story of profound tenderness and originality, this ingenious lo-fi fantasy will delight those who already thrilled to Lanthimos’ vision in “Alps” and the Oscar-nominated “Dogtooth”…” Guy Lodge, Variety
“In a world devoted to happy endings, where platitudes like “the right person is out there waiting for you” or “someday your Prince will come” are parroted as Unquestioned Truths, the film is a welcome breath of freezing cold, poisoned air.” Sheila O’ Malley, RogerEbert.com