The Lobster imagines a near-future where being single is treated as a malfunction to be corrected.
Recently divorced David (Colin Farrell) checks into a coastal hotel where guests have 45 days to pair off with a compatible partner; fail, and you are surgically transformed into an animal of your choosing. He picks a lobster, for its long life and cold blood. Lanthimos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou play the premise with total procedural seriousness: staged seductions, group hunts for escaped singles in the woods, daily lectures on the dangers of living alone.
This was Lanthimos's first English-language film, arriving after Dogtooth and Alps established him as a leading figure of the so-called Greek Weird Wave. For the role, Farrell gained roughly 40 pounds and deliberately dulled his own presence, trading his usual charisma for a stooped, sedated physicality. Rachel Weisz has described how the added weight softened his jawline into something sweet and doughy, a visible sign of a man trying to disappear into a system that punishes anyone who stands out.
What makes the film work is the discipline of its tone. Every actor delivers even the strangest lines in the same flat monotone, so the horror of the institution never has to be underlined. Farrell, Weisz and Olivia Colman (as the hotel's icily polite manager) hold that register without breaking it. Lanthimos won the Jury Prize at Cannes for it, and it earned Filippou and Lanthimos an Academy Award nomination for original screenplay.
At 119 minutes, The Lobster earns its structure without overstaying, splitting cleanly into hotel and forest halves without tipping its hand about where either goes. It rewards viewers who like their comedy served cold and their satire literalized rather than winked at. Check current listings on PLOT for tonight's verified streaming or rental availability before pressing play.
