The Lobster
Ο Αστακός
Directed by:
Yorgos LanthimosCinematography:
Thimios BakatakisComposer:
Johnnie BurnCast:
Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly, Jessica Barden, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia (more)Plots(1)
Set in a dystopian future where failure to find a partner is unacceptable, recently widowed David (Colin Farrell) is given just 45 days to find a replacement partner. In line with the rules of The City, singletons are taken to The Hotel where they are forced to find a mate and those that fail to pair up are transformed into an animal of their choosing and sent into the surrounding woods. Although David appears less desperate than some of his fellow guests to forge a new relationship, he tries his best to create a union with a fellow cold-hearted resident (Angeliki Papoulia). But after his latest attempt at a relationship fails, David flees The Hotel and into the wilderness where he falls in love with a Loner (Rachel Weisz) despite the militant group's ban on romantic interactions. (Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (12)
With its cast of well-known actors and relatively comprehensible core story of forbidden love, The Lobster is Lanthimos’s most accessible film. At the same time, however, it is as comparably sharp in its satire, visually distinctive and unclassifiable in terms of genre as his earlier work, which was intended exclusively for the festival circuit. ___ The use of static shots, faded cold colours and passages from classical compositions played by string quartets adds disturbing undertones to the absurdist plot and prepares us for displays of instinctive aggression, which are shocking despite the fact that we don’t directly see most of them. The scenes of death and dying are filmed with the same cold detachment as the dialogue spoken by the actors without a hint of any emotion (which makes it even funnier). As a result, The Lobster is also strange in that it doesn’t draw attention to its strangeness. The transformation of people into animals seems as natural as the regular hunts for loners. ___ However, every protest has its own rules, which in the end can be just as restrictive as those against which we originally defined ourselves, as seen in the second half of the film. The ideology of the couple is replaced by an ideology of extreme individualism. Those who fail in their search for a partner are paradoxically punished by not being allowed to find one. As in A Clockwork Orange, the greatest evil here consists in the impossibility of free choice. Those who lose the possibility to make their own decisions also lose their individuality. This is precisely the aim of all repressive systems, including the one that Lanthimos invented for his film. ___ By taking the opportunistic logic of interpersonal interaction to extremes, Lanthimos exposes the mechanisms through which not only relationships, but essentially society as a whole function, at least outwardly. According to his bleak vision, people are condemned to an absence of freedom resulting from the unrelenting fear of what others think of them. At least the short-term solution to unsatisfying romantic cohabitation is to invent one’s own way of communicating that is not guided by the dominant ideology and is not based on rules that are social constructs (even though we perceive them as something natural). ___ Like in Dogtooth and Alps, the hermetically sealed microcosm of humanity serves Lanthimos as an experimental laboratory in which thought-provoking things happen, but which do not hold together well enough from the storytelling perspective. This was surely partly intentional. The use of various alienating devices (the omniscient narrator, the counterpoint of music and image) constantly pulls us out of the narrative and prevents us from simply enjoying the film. However, this can eventually lead to disinterest in the characters and what they are going through. ___ The considerations that The Lobster inspires keep us more engaged than the story that it tells. In my opinion, the recent Anomalisa is proof that it is possible to make an entertaining, relatively accessible and emotionally engaging film that also keeps an appropriate distance from its characters and thus works more with ideas than with emotions. Its protagonist is also punished for his solitariness, just in a less visible way than The Lobster’s David. 80%
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Orwell style black-humorous romantic satire ... Bizarre? Definitely. Unique? There´s no doubt about it. Refined? Not even close. The first hotel half is incomparably better the second forest part, which is ruined mainly by the non-existent chemistry between the central couple that is "despite everything" very much in love and by the fact that it all fades away (and no, I do not mean the final scene). And now something completely different.
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The Lobster is a parade of depravity where single people are taken to a hotel and if they don't find the love of their life within 45 days, they are killed and turned into the animal of their choice, and they also often run into the woods to hide from the hotel staff who sometimes come hunting for them. That's the plot in a nutshell. Colin Farrell is okay, though it's certainly not the role of a lifetime, the plot is very bizarre, the first half hour plays out a compelling yet unforced interesting game and sets up the rules of the world, at times the film has a perverse futuristic undertone and at other times it’s funny to the point of parody. Unfortunately, it all feels so strange, underdeveloped and very uncertain, and while you can see that the idea and originality are there, the translation into ideal cinematic form is worse. It's probably no wonder, this concept is pretty crazy and personally I don't think it could have been done "better", but that's not because the film is very good, but simply because this thing can't even be made into a movie. A bold move by the director, for sure, but an unfinished affair that will puzzle viewers for a long time. It's hard to judge, but the final impression is rather negative – I get the feeling that the film wants to be taken more seriously than it actually is.
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I don't know if master Lanthimos, who wrote one of the most bizarre scripts we've ever seen on the silver screen, was the only one on drugs, or if it was also the actors, led by the soft-spoken Farrell, with the most bizarre role of his career. But who really cares when this emotionally ungraspable yet romantic, visually austere and static yet compelling sci-fi flick somehow works and is pieced together with exactly the right carefully chosen essences to maintain its unique face of a confident auteur film from the first to the last second. If it had been given a slightly more sinister and less parodic look the fanatical totalitarian system, and if it could evoke more sympathy for the weird characters, it could have been one of the most interesting independent films of recent years, but as it is, The Lobster is just a passing speciality for festival and arthouse audiences... 75%
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Yorgos Lanthimos is so weird to the point of being fun, and after The Killing of a Sacred Deer I gave a chance to the the two year older The Lobster and I'm thrilled. Colin Farrel may be the man for these weird projects. The film pulls you in right from the start with its very bizarre idea and unusual hotel with strange rules and harsh punishment. Surprisingly, it was quite gritty in places, but very funny in others and managed to make you tense or downright shock you. I love that combination and some of the scenes were downright brilliant. The scream of the woman who jumped from the 10th floor to the ground was so realistically portrayed that I had goosebumps all over. For me it was a blast, but it won't suit everyone (not everyone likes this kind of controversial bizarre stuff). The only disappointment is the open ending. 85%
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