The Lobster, the first English-language feature from Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos, takes place in a dystopian world where single people are hunted with tranquilizer darts and, when captured, must secure a suitable mate within 45 days or be transformed into an animal. As the film opens, a paunchy, nearsighted nebbish named David (Colin Farrell), whose wife of 12 years has recently left him for another man, checks into a rural hotel that specializes in matchmaking. Accompanying him is his brother, who is now a sheepdog. “He was here a couple of years ago,” David tells the concierge. “But he didn’t make it.” Later, in David’s room, the hotel manager asks him what animal he would like to be if he doesn’t make it. David replies that he would like to be a lobster, because lobsters are cold-blooded, have hard exoskeletons, and can live up to 100 years. The hotel manager advises David that, if he is transfigured, he should stick to dating within his species. “A wolf and a penguin could never live together, nor could a camel and a hippopotamus,” she tells him. “That would be absurd.”
The Lobster‘s comedy, like that of so many absurdist plays, is biting and tinged with terror. The Heartless Woman (Angeliki Papoulia, a Lanthimos regular) comes off as prickly in a humorous way—like a harmless, stone-faced villain in a Wes Anderson film—before revealing herself to be a homicidal psychopath. The quirky Biscuit Woman (Ashley Jensen) pesters David to become her mate and, sensing his lack of interest, blithely informs him that she’d rather throw herself out of her hotel room window than be turned into something pathetic and inhuman. When she finally makes good on her promise, the residents are mainly distracted and annoyed by the mess. “She jumped from the window of 180,” notes one woman. “There is blood and biscuits everywhere.”
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
