THE LOBSTER IS DARK BUT FUNNY
If you didn’t catch it in the cinema earlier this summer, you can now rent director Yogos Lanthimo‘s dark comedy The Lobster on your Amazon Prime. Starring a frumpy Colin Farrell, this story inhabits a goofy, yet stark world. In a hotel on the outskirts of the city, the predominant culture does not tolerate single people. If ever you find yourself without a partner, you have 45 days to find a new one or else will be transformed to an animal of your choosing. David (Farrell) starts his stint at the hotel after his wife leaves him. He brings along his dog who is actually his brother—he “didn’t make it.”
The movie seems to indirectly make fun of modern day online dating culture and the clinical manner in which this world handles romance. The characters start by acknowledging a defining trait, be it a lisp, a limp, farsightedness or chronic nosebleeds. Throughout the movie, characters use these flawed traits as the common ground to establish compatibility. David even pretends to be a psychopath in his desperation to hurry up and find a partner. He contorts himself in order to have something in common with the only woman he thinks he can pair up with—something we can all relate to doing, right?
However, David reaches a point where he’s had enough and manages to escape the hotel. The social commentary becomes genius as a rebel group comes to his rescue called “The Loners.” The Loners have taken things so far as to not allow any romance among themselves. Of course, It’s an absurd restriction. People in The Loner camp fall in love and are punished in grotesque ways but stay anyway. David too falls in love, and goes to great lengths to keep his newfound partner under the bizarre new rules.
The Lobster also stars Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw, Efthymis Filippou and John C. Reilly.
