Quarantine Binge: "The Lobster" (2015) Review
Editor’s Note: With no new theatrical releases for the foreseeable future, we will be reviewing a variety of old and new films that are available to stream on popular services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. For a full ranking of films in this series and to find our other reviews, please follow this link.
Plot synopsis courtesy of IMDb.com: “In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods.”
Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos (The Killing of a Sacred Deer)
Written by: Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou (The Killing of a Sacred Deer)
Starring: Olivia Colman (The Favourite), Colin Farrell (In Bruges) and Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener)
The Lobster is rated R.
The Lobster is the breakout film by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, who has since made The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite — which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2019 (and won one). By reading the synopsis, anyone can tell that The Lobster is a supremely weird film. David (Colin Farrell) is a man who has just undergone a break-up and is admitted to The Hotel where he has 45 days to find a spouse before he will be turned into an animal.
The film doesn’t explain much of this dystopian world and leaves viewers more or less on their own to figure things out. In The Hotel, guests are kept under strict watch and the punishments for breaking any of the various rules are harsh. The hotel manager, played by Olivia Colman, arranges dances and other social events to propagate the budding romances — even if it seems most partnerships are made out of sheer necessity.
For as weird a premise as it is, the script doesn’t play for laughs and it isn’t interested in pandering to those who aren’t along for the ride. It doesn’t need grounded explanations or reasoning for anything that happens and doesn’t have time for those obsessed with understanding why its world works this way. It just does. Out of pure curiosity and interest in what this fictional world is like I was on board for 90% of the film.
Once inside The Hotel, the film is a dark parody of a reality dating show with much higher stakes and less drama. It was almost refreshing at times to see people approach courtship without the traditional shenanigans of playing hard to get and feigning disinterest. Everyone there (more or less) had the same end goal and had to cut to the chase or risk being transfigured.
It would feel refreshing if not for the cynical and sadistic approach to people that Lanthimos is known for. David’s unnamed “significant other” (Rachel Weisz) was the only slightly compassionate character in the film and David himself was only bearable when his bumbling awkwardness was mistaken for simple charm. Weisz and Farrell (and everyone else for that matter) are phenomenally uncanny but the film overall took one slight step too far — barely crossing the line from quirky and eccentric to being heartless and cruel.
I cannot, in good faith, give The Lobster a glowing recommendation, but I can say that it is, at its best, a bizarrely original experience. It is hard to believe that such a film exists until you see it — and for that reason, it was worth a couple of hours during a global shutdown. I only wish it had an ounce of empathy to go along with it.
Reel Rating: 6/10
The Lobster is available to stream on Netflix.
