The Lobster (2015)

A Brave New World of dystopian madness

“The Lobster” (2015) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Picture courtesy of and with thanks to www.wallpapers.com

31st March 2023

Following a lengthy list of countries including Ireland, the UK, France, Greece and The Netherlands, as well as numerous independent film production companies and their national affiliates are all detailed in minute font against a plain dark black background, the film commences with a close-up shot of a woman driving a car in the pouring rain. After stopping the car the camera never moves from the vantage point of the passenger seat as the woman exits the car and walks into a nearby field before shooting dead a donkey. As another donkey slowly walks in front of his now deceased friend, the woman trudges back to the car through the pouring rain as the opening title of “THE LOBSTER” is shown centrally on the screen amid another plain dark black background.

We cut to an over the shoulder shot of a partly obscured “David” (Colin Farrell) who appears crestfallen, listless and with only his dog “Bob” for company. The doorbell rings and soon a female narration commences that although “someone doesn’t love them anymore, he doesn’t cry” before a further cut now follows a white van along a nondescript road.

Immediately we cut to a now fuller profile of David as he disconsolately and distractedly answers a raft of questions from an unseen woman off screen. Downcast and deadpan, he answers incredibly personal questions regarding his longest relationship “11 years, 1 month” before admitting to a homosexual relationship whilst at college and, after an incredibly long pause, he confirms his sexuality as heterosexual. A quick cut to the exterior of the building establishes a grand hotel structure on the shore of a lake before we return inside to David confirming that the dog isn’t in fact his but his brother’s, and the woman questioner now shown fully for the first time confirming he has been allocated a single room for the next 45 days and “If you make it, you’ll move to a double room”. David is now required to strip naked to his underpants and provided a standard set of clothing and two pairs of shoes as “personal belongings” are not allowed, before he joins a small gaggle of similarly naked men and women sitting on chairs at the side of the room.

The next cut finds David standing in just his underpants in “Room 101” with his brother’s dog as he stares out of the window and onto the adjoining lake. The woman’s narration continues as David searches through the wardrobe to find four identical blue or dark coloured shirts and trousers, there is a tranquiliser gun hanging on the wall and twenty darts sit on a nearby table. The camera now pans from David’s viewpoint out of the window and downward to the tarmac road where there is a collection of bodies described by the narrator as “loners” arranged in a neat row.

There is a knock at the door before a number of hotel staff and the “Hotel Manager” (Olivia Colman) enter David’s room. A very straight forward, unsmiling and taciturn lady, she quickly confirms that David has exactly 45 days in which to find love and find a partner, or else he will turn into an animal of his choosing. We now cut to a continuing downcast and unsmiling David with Bob the dog sprawled beneath the window. David confirms that he wishes to transform into a lobster “because they live for a hundred years” before one hand is manacled behind him and attached to his belt by a member of the hotel staff. Both the manager and her staff exit David’s room.

Welcome to “The Lobster”!

Directed by Greek born filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Lobster” was his sixth all time feature length cinematic release in 2015, his first in the English language and, if you pardon the eating metaphor, the meat in the sandwich of two of his more well known releases with “Dogtooth” in 2009 and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” in 2017. This particular film has long been on my desired watch list radar due to my acting admiration for Colin Farrell (and I seem to be having a “season” of his films currently — please see my recent reviews of “In Bruges”, “Seven Psychopaths” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”), his fellow cast members including the magnificent Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ben Whishaw, John C Reilly and of course, the always enigmatically brilliant, Michael Smiley. I’ve also long been drawn to the film poster with its missing pieces and finally, as Wednesday 29th March 2023 tiptoed into the early morning of Thursday 30th March, I settled into as bizarre a tale as I’ve recently watched. But was it any good?

The answer is yes, and almost.

I watch a lot of films (and I don’t always pen my thoughts on every one), but I seem to have recently stumbled upon a number that are very distinctly in two halves, and “The Lobster”, to my eye, is very definitely one of them. As I hope I’ve conveyed with my opening ten minute appreciation at the commencement of this article, the film goes from strength to ultra bizarre strength from here for the first hour, and within the confines of a lakeside hotel that felt like a prison. Olivia Colman’s hotel manager character is as cold and detached as ice with rarely a smile passing her lips (a definite characteristic of a film that is LAUGH OUT LOUD hilarious at times), but the regimentation and routines of the hotel in league with the prisoners (sorry, guests) all in uniformed attire (suits or prison style dark blue and black for the males/flowery dresses for the females) and there are punishments meted out for transgressors of etiquette or rules with a zero tolerance policy for anyone wishing to not participate in the hotel’s strict daily routines. Just wait for the daily regime and somewhat “roll call” or the cringe and wince inducing singing of “Something’s Gotten Hold of my Heart” as our dead eyed lovebirds try to secure a dance with the fairer sex!

Everyone has a “characteristic” that simply has to be matched for them to escape the purgatory of the 45 days or the ultimate transformation into their animal of choice. John C Reilly for instance has a lisp and Ben Whishaw a limp. One woman has a recurring nosebleed and one woman is scathingly put down as being “heartless” and therein lies the story of the first half of the film and arguably the template for the film entire. Everyone is here seeking love and companionship in a horribly dystopian world, and that’s just within the confines again of the hotel. The backwards dystopia extends far beyond the boundaries of the hotel but within it, everyone has a unique characteristic to go with their morose, deadpan, dead eyed and dead to the world matter of fact outlook and communication with everyone else. It is incredibly funny, but equally it’s jarring, awkward and there is a very real air of tension, dread and feel of impending doom or personal threat.

The second half of the film, whilst I won’t be commenting on any further for spoiler reasons, isn’t a match for the magnificent hour that comes before it, but the threatening air continues in league with an incredible music soundtrack (no one person is credited with the score — only a “Music Department”), but all six people credited deserve huge kudos for a jagged and ominous orchestral strings soundtrack that continually reminded me of Jonny Greenwood’s creation for Paul Thomas Anderson’s ode to American capitalism in “There Will Be Blood” and in a film that screamed “1984” or George Lucas’ coldly dystopian debut film “THX 1138”.

“The Lobster” is the oddest, coldest, threat inducing singles club full of people desperate for love you’re ever likely to see, and it may well shock you at how uproariously funny it is too.

Highly recommended.

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Originally penned and published on 31st March 2023 (and during a season of Yorgos Lanthimos directed films) I ADORED “The Lobster” so much I simply had to include it within my Top 10 films watched during the calendar year of 2023. Hopefully my spoiler free take above has piqued your interest further to dive into my “Read Along” concept whereby you’re welcome to, well, read along with me as I read my own review via my Youtube channel and link immediately below. I’ve also linked three further Yorgos Lanthimos films I cannot recommend to you highly enough, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (2017), “The Favourite” (2018) and “Poor Things” (2023).

Bless you for reading.

(1) My self-published pride and joy to date. All available via Amazon (Author’s Collection)

(2) My self-published pride and joy to date. All available via Amazon (Author’s Collection)

Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.

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