The Lobster

Movie, 2016, R

Premise - In a dystopian world, human beings are forced to either live as part of a romantic couple or be turned into an animal. Single adults are not allowed, and are sent through a hotel system that organizes them to find a match. If they do not find a suitable match (one who shares a defining characteristic with them), in an allotted amount of days, they will be transformed into the animal of their choice. In order to elongate their stay at the hotel, they must hunt down other loners.

Review - What in the what. What. I've been attracted to the idea of this film ever since I saw the trailer, before a screening of Daniel Radcliffe's Swiss Army Man (also distributed by indie company A24). Unfamiliar with this director at the time, I thought to myself, "Now THAT'S a mental playground" and had it on my list ever since. It's such an original and bizarre concept that I couldn't help but be drawn to it. I also noticed that it had raving critical reviews. A year or so later, I had finally started watching the movie with a close friend of mine, who was so weirded out that she demanded we turn it off less than halfway through. I was weirded out too, but I like the sensation of being weirded out. Often times it means I'm thinking a lot. So I wanted to finish someday but didn't find any opportunity until the film was put in Netflix.

In the meantime, I saw another film from this director, also starring Colin Farrell, The Killing of the Sacred Deer, and got a strong sense of his style. Quiet, distant, creepy, disturbing, and very, VERY emotionally detached. It was a film that I didn't know whether or not I liked it at the end, but I definitely thought about it a lot. This film on the other hand, The Lobster, more or less resulted in the same reaction. But this film also has a strong, black comical aspect that gave me more reason to enjoy it.

I don't know what to think. It takes a lot to weird me out, truly, and this film succeeded. I suppose I can enjoy dry comedy to a certain extent, as well as outrageous black comedy, but when you put black and excessively dry comedy together, it just comes off as... horrific. Especially moments where the comedy lies in either death or violence.

I was thinking a lot about what sort of events could have triggered this particular form of dystopia. At first I was thinking the forced couples aspect was to protect human reproductivity, but that doesn't make sense. They are not forced to have children, children are only assigned to them in cases where the marriage is failing so that they have an external reason to stay together. Also, there's no heternormativity. They are allowed to be in a homosexual couple, so long as it is a suitable match. So what is the need for this extreme level of social order? What is also fascinating in the film is the heavy amount of propaganda, rhetoric, and manipulation the hotel-goers endure to incentivize them to find a partner. They are sexually stimulated, but not allowed to masturbate or finish, so as to keep them sexually motivated to settle down. They also have to watch ridiculous skits about the lives of single people vs. partners.

But the weirdest part to me about this social order is that they cannot just form a partnership with anyone. The match HAS to be suitable, or it doesn't count. If it really was about order, I could have imagined that each person could have been randomly paired with another. But the biggest sin is marrying someone who is not your match. And even weirder, a match means you share a defining characteristic, (i.e. you're both short-sighted, you both have a limp, or you both have nosebleeds.) They are very superficial commonalities, and as far as I could tell not valid if it's something like "We have similar senses of humor!" I think that's because these superficial commonalities are the only thing people possibly CAN have in common. Everybody seems to have the same, awkward, lifeless personality. There's only one time in the entire film that you hear a person genuinely laugh. It suggests that despite all this emphasis on finding love, nobody actually experiences it. There's no possible way to explain the purpose of this society.

Then there's the whole animal thing, but that's just absurdist and never really delved into either.

I understand it's not supposed to be understood - that is this director's style. But the film will nevertheless always stick with me. (75/100)

Quote - "Today is your last day, and as is customary, you can choose how you would like to spend your last night. What I always say in these situations is it would be wise to choose something you can't do as an animal. For example, read a work of classic literature, or sing a song you really like. It would be silly to choose, for example, a walk in the grounds, or to have sexual intercourse with another person because those are things you can do as an animal."

What to watch for - I'm... I... I don't know. I really thought the lisping man and the nosebleed woman were quite an oddly charming couple, even though their relationship was not genuine. I mean also just watch for the experience of watching it. This is not a film one comes by every day.

If you liked this movie, I'd recommend The Killing of the Sacred Deer!

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Distributed by A24