For whatever reason, people are obsessed with love and relationships – celebrity couples, The Bachelor (and its female counterpart), Rock of Love, Love Island. . . the list goes on and on. Then there are those nosey questions from family members – ‘Any prospective dates?’, ‘Are you seeing anyone special?’, ‘What happened to that nice girl you were dating last year?’, ‘When are you going to get married?’. . . as if you can’t be happy unless you are paired with someone. Based on this assumption, Yorgos Lanthimos creates a most fascinating vision of this very world of love and relationships with his 2015 film The Lobster.
An absurdist dystopic vision set in a rather similar world to today, Lanthimos (along with his writing partner Efthimis Filippou) set out very strict rules for this alternate reality. In a landscape where everyone must be paired together, those who lose a partner (either to death or separation), are sent to a high end resort – where they have only forty-five days to find a suitable partner to continue their lives. If, for whatever reason, they cannot find someone, they are turned into an animal of their choosing (bonus!).
Enter David (Colin Farrell), a man whose wife has left him for someone else. Only a few days after this most painful experience, he is rounded up and brought to an estate-like love-finding hotel. Depressed, melancholic, and adrift, he does not seem like he is very excited to rush into another relationship. . . instead finding friends in a Limping Man (Ben Whishaw) and a Lisping Man (John C. Reilly) – the threesome generally stick together.
This facility is run by the Hotel Manager (Olivia Colman), and there are very strict rules when you enter this compound. Not only do you have the previously mentioned forty-five days to find someone (the title comes from the fact David has chosen to turn into a lobster if he fails in coupling), but you must eat each meal at a table all by your lonesome (just to remind you of this fact), and wear the same exact clothes as everyone else (I guess those James Bond villains had it right all along). Singles must also watch a number of presentations on why you are better off in pairs (outlandish examples suggest that you will be raped and die if you are alone), attend soirées that are more awkward than your first middle school dance, as well as speak on a dais – telling all your most renowned trait (a limp, a nice smile, frequent nosebleeds, a heartless bitch – you’re basically prompted to find someone with the same trait or ailment as you). Other cruel edicts – no masturbation (otherwise, your hand is placed in a toaster as punishment), daily lap dances to measure your excitement (yet, as soon as you’re aroused, it ends), also, you are forced to go on hunts every day – for there are so-called ‘loners’ living in the forest (bag one with a tranquillizer dart and you get an extra day to find a person to pair with).
Eventually, we do get a view of this other side. Run by the Loner Leader (Léa Seydoux), our narrator, a Shortsighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), actually resides in this seemingly freer group. Yet, in reality, this faction is no less militant – for their definition of freedom means that you are not allowed to ever find someone (no flirting, no dancing together, no sex. . .). Basically, the goal (after swaying a little to electronic dance music) is to terrorize those who have found love. . . and, in their free time, prepare for impending death by digging their own graves ahead of time (in this world, no one else will).
A world of black or white, there is no grey area here. Cruel and calculated, Lanthimos and Filippou develop a cold, clinical script that echoes this skewed world. With stilted dialogue, no one comes off as natural or fluid, each character awkward in their delivery (a conscious choice by director and actors). It signifies that no one is comfortable in this meat market, everyone burdened by the stress of being forced to find someone in short order. . . people going so far as faking traits to force pairings before it is too late (though, if you are caught, the punishment is instant animal conversion). Desperation seeps from every pore – people willing to do, or offer more, just to try and find someone.
A fascinating observation on the desperation, complexities, and desire for love (and the general fact that people really want you to be paired up with someone for some odd reason – must be an instinctual procreation thing), The Lobster is a dark dramedy that is really out there. Not your typical fare, it is logical in its illogicalness, original in its most ancient of themes, creative in its rigidity (I must mention that the camera work very much stands out – lots of distant shots, and views from just above or below sight lines – other rarities, the film was shot in chronological order with natural light and without makeup), operatic in its mood (and soundtrack – all of the music is pulled from the works of Stravinski, Beethoven, Strauss, among others), and so very weird (yet, in an odd way, is very telling in its truths revolving around these themes). And, in a few opportune moments, the absurdity enters an almost Monty Pythonesque realm. So, have some blind faith in believing that this movie will pair nicely with your cinematic tastes. . . if not, you’d better start thinking of an animal that you’d like to become.