The Film Reports

3 stars

Comedy, Drama, Romance

I actually hadn’t heard of The Lobster when it came out despite the award-winning cast, instead I saw it by chance on Netflix. It’s produced by Film4 and features Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Lea Seydoux.

The Lobster is a dystopian, like a unisex version of The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s not very realistic (as you might have guessed from the idea of turning people into animals as punishment), and the film doesn’t give a whole-world-building-experience so there are a lot of basic questions about the system that go unanswered, but I don’t mind this. In the portion of the world that we can see, all single adults are placed in a hotel where they must find a partner within the 45 days that are given to them. If they fail to do this, they get turned into an animal of their choice. There are several other rules and events in the hotel, such as “The Hunt” where the residents are let loose in the forest with weapons to kill each other – the prize being an extra day in the hotel and of course, less competition. The film also explores what happens after somebody does find “love”, when David’s friend John enters a relationship with Nose Bleed Woman (Jessica Barden).

If you’re surprised that there is a character called Nose Bleed Woman, you shouldn’t be, because apart from three characters, nobody is given a name. Not even David’s future love interest, Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz). It’s the kind of quirky feature that reminds me of Wes Anderson, and to be honest, there is more than a few things that remind me of Anderson’s storytelling. I’m not sure if the director, Yorgos Lanthimos, did this on purpose or maybe it’s just because I haven’t seen any other work by him and I’m being a bit biased, but there are definitely things that call back to Wes Anderson’s signature directing and writing.

One thing that sets it apart however, is the general tone of the film. It starts out pretty bizarre from the beginning, that’s for sure. And it retains that almost childlike strangeness throughout the film but it also progressively gets more horrifying, hence that earlier comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale. I’m not going to spoil anything but it was very shocking. Another very surprising element were the sex scenes. I think there could be another comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale in there; they were very explicit and robotic, and unpleasant to sit through. Definitely don’t watch with your family.

All in all, it’s an interesting film and I did enjoy it in a passive way. Like one of those movies that you keep watching while flicking through the channels and then you get sucked in despite not having watched the beginning. I think passive describes this movie perfectly.

Watch it: when you kind of want to watch a movie but kind of don’t at the same time. Daytime movie for sure though, I think.