Review: The Lobster (2015)

It’s times like this that I love co-running a movie blog. I’ve watched so many movies over the last (almost) 2 years that would have fell completely off my radar would it not be for the little blogging community that I’m part of here. I love reading reviews of movies I’ve seen, learning about the perspective of others is fascinating, but I also love reading reviews for movies I’ve never even heard of. Seriously, if I read a review singing the praises of a movie I’ve never heard before, I’ll do everything within my power to watch it that very night. And that is how I found myself watching The Lobster.  I really struggled to make myself want to watch this, I sensed it was outside of my comfort zone but I was determined to watch it anyway, especially with such a high review from Allie.

The Lobster (2015) has one of the craziest plots I’ve ever heard. I tried to explain it (badly) to Jenna before Christmas but with more time to think I might be able to make it sound more coherent. Set in a dystopian future, single people are arrested and taken to ‘The Hotel’, where they stay for 45 days with the goal of finding a new partner. Should they succeed, they are free to leave, but if they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choice and sent away.

I’m not kidding, that really is the plot! The movie starts with Colin Farrell’s character David, arriving at the hotel after recently losing his wife. With him is his brother, a dog, whose stay at The Hotel clearly didn’t go very well. It takes a while to get accustomed to this movie, it really throws you into the deep end. Everything looks a little dull, and everyone speaks in an almost monotone way that makes the humour that much more deadpan.  The deadpan voiceovers really confused me, for the first half of the movie I thought it was terrible acting rather than a conscious choice. Once I got used to it though I realised it was part of the overall effect.

Throughout the guests 45-day stay, they are forced to attend dances just as awkward as those you attended as a child, and guests are also brought onto stage to talk about themselves, in order to find common ground with the others. They can also extend their stay by taking part in an almost Hunger Games style activity of shooting down escapees with a tranquilizer gun. Each escapee, or ‘loner’ they shoot down is worth an extra day, and not surprisingly, there are a few veterans at The Hotel who may never leave!

I definitely preferred the first half of the movie to the second half, the second half felt a bit more chaotic which was logical based on the change of pace in the movie but I could barely keep up to be honest.  The first half however, I loved.  The bond developed between David (Colin Farrell), the lisping man (John C. Reilly) and the limping man (Ben Whishaw) was hilarious (although not sure if it was supposed to be!!).  Did anyone else notice that no one else in the film had a name other than David?!  I thought about it and checked IMDB and sure enough, not a single name!
 

I loved how this movie brought to light all the crazy conceptions we as a society have about relationships. Things like the fact that we feel like we need to find common ground with someone in order to be compatible, all the way to thinking that having a child is the way to solve problems within a relationship, suddenly seem that more absurd here. I’m a big fan of movies that get me thinking long after the credits have rolled, and The Lobster is one for sure.

My only real complaint was that by the second half of the movie, I felt it had all got much too clever for me, and I started to lose interest. Not in the story itself, but just the ongoings on the screen. I later read a full synopsis of what happened though, and I’m keen to watch this again now I fully understand it.  I'm not sure I would sit through this again to be honest.

This might be the craziest movie I’ve ever watched, and I can’t recommend it highly enough! It was truly insane but completely different to anything I have ever seen before.