Movie Review—The Lobster

by Peter J. O’Connell

The Lobster. Released (US): May 2016. Runtime: 119 mins. MPAA rating: R for sexual content, including dialogue, and some violence.

The Lobster is a savory cinematic dish, but one not to everyone’s taste. You have to like—or, at least, be open to—surrealism. Surrealism, you know the kind of work that infuses dreamlike or hallucinatory qualities into its depiction of reality. Think: the short stories of Kafka, the paintings of Dali, the plays of Ionesco, the films of Bunuel.

The Lobster is seriously surrealistic, which means that it is also humorous in a dark, absurdist way. The film, an international production in English, is skillfully helmed by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos.

The dystopian world of The Lobster apparently consists primarily of three locales: The City, The Hotel, The Woods. According to the rules of The City, single people are taken to The Hotel, where they are given 45 days to find a partner. Those who fail are turned into an animal of his/her choice and released into The Woods.

The Hotel features social activities, partnership propaganda, and sexual stimulation—short of completion—provided by the staff. “Guests” at The Hotel can extend their stay by hunting escapees, known as Loners, with tranquilizer guns in The Woods.

David (Colin Farrell), a handsome hunk but with a schlubby personality, has to go to The Hotel because his wife has left him for another man. He arrives with his brother, who has been turned into a dog for failing to find a mate. Asked what creature he would like to be turned into if he also fails, David says a lobster because they live for 100 years.

At The Hotel, David becomes involved in various ways with such characters as the Nosebleed Woman, the Biscuit Woman, the Heartless Woman, the Lisping Man, the Limping Man, and the Hotel Manager, the Doctor, the Maid.

These involvements don’t result in a partnership but in violent situations, so David escapes to The Woods and joins The Loners. The Loner Leader (Lea Seydoux) is gorgeous but imposes a regime reminiscent of the Anti-Sex League in Orwell’s 1984. Romance is punishable by mutilation. Nonetheless, David begins a secret relationship with Short-Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz). Dark developments result, and David has to decide how far he is willing to go for true love.

The Lobster’s surrealism surrounds a satirical take on what may be our contemporary “bipolar” state with regard to relationships: on the one hand, courtship based on the like-for-like algorithms of online dating sites; and on the other hand, neo-puritanical condemnations of many traditional aspects of romance and sexuality.

The Lobster, like the eponymous sea creature, may have a long life, a long life as a cult classic, though it will never be a mass hit. Like the wacky Monty Python and the Holy Grail from the 1970s, The Lobster may be helped to live on through some of the deadpan humor of its dialogue. Examples: “If you encounter any problems you cannot resolve yourselves, you will be assigned children; that usually helps.” And: “I was playing golf, and the last thing I need is some woman dying slowly and loudly.” And: “We dance alone. That’s why we only play electronic music.”