The Lobster (2015) Reviews

• Very true reflections of our society

  vbrt01172015-10-17

  The film is dark humoured, satiric and mocking mirror of society reflecting on human's obsession to fit in certain rules of society, despite how ridiculous they are. We step on our primary feelings and ignore our instincts just to play by the rules, to belong. And even it was the clear theme of being obsessed with being in a couple, I see it as a bigger reflection of society. After the main character runs into the woods, where he finds rebels of coupling, it's clear that they are as extreme as the hotel people. It looks like it's shown that people have to belong to survive, but options are limited and you have to obey, pretend or risk to be destroyed. Various examples of dysfunctional relationships are shown in the film, which looks so familiar – pretending to have something in common, pretending that you understand that you are the same. Desperation, rejection, cruelty in the relationships – we have seen and know it all, but director found the way to remind it with a lighter tone, with the possibility to laugh at ourselves and society. All the characters acted and talked in the same hyper-polite manner – that's what we do, so often we dance around difficult and extreme situations with our repressed feelings. And despite how similar everyone talked, with the same tone and politeness, we can see through that and find individuality of the characters, and it shows that we are more than just rules, etiquette … The obsession to have something in common with you partner reached the peek at the end. It looked like even David and blind women are still in love, but a realisation that in society norms they don't have anything real in common drives to an extreme decision. It shows that we sacrifice so much if we love someone different, and all just to be more acceptable in the society, but at the end society doesn't care, so do we just have to be braver? This film makes more think than feel. The audience who is used to relate to the characters might find it difficult, as even the main character is not very lovable, he is a week and very human in other words. It's not a 'feel good' film but not miserablism, it's smart and innovative reminder…

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• Easily the weirdest film you'll see all year

  themadmovieman2015-10-18

  There's no chance that you'll see a film as weird as The Lobster this whole year. In what is effectively an indie art-house piece, you get a completely insane and almost unfathomable world filled with more and more absurdities everywhere you look. However, it's such an incredibly unique and eye-catching film that it's still hugely engrossing and surprisingly entertaining to watch. The story centres around one man, played by Colin Farrell, as he attempts to find a partner as a part of this bizarre system. The first act revolves around his time in 'The Hotel', and is not only hugely odd, but both dramatic and unnerving as well as hilarious to watch, featuring some of the best dark comedy written in years. The film takes its story as seriously as any drama, and you feel that through the deeply disturbing atmosphere that emerges off the screen. However, as the film is just so weird, it eases you into the oddness of it all very impressively through the use of humour, something that more pretentious art-house films fail to do, and are resultantly a lot harder to really get into. So, you'll definitely be laughing a lot, if not in a more disturbed than hugely entertained manner, throughout the first act, and by the end of it, you'll surely be as used as you can be to the incredibly weird feel of this whole film. Just to give you an idea of how unorthodox this film is, every scene is full of awkward silences, the actors speak as if they're reading off of cue cards with no emotion whatsoever, the imagery is very ugly and unpleasant to look at right the way through, and the incredible slow pace of it all means that the film feels like it goes on for about five times as long as it actually does. And yet, I still can't get around the fact that this is a brilliant film. Mainly, it's the fact that it's just so unique and almost shockingly bizarre, but it's just filled with so many captivating ideas that it's impossible not to be fully drawn into this insane story. So, the performances, the directing, the writing, and pretty much everything is stunning, apart from one big issue that prevents this from being a truly incredible film. Following the end of the first act, the film does lose its way quite a lot, taking almost too big a leap into an even stranger abyss than you ever imagined at the beginning, and, with a little less humour in the latter stages, isn't as easy to watch as the first act had been. However, it does pick up again towards a terrifying and as bizarre as ever conclusion, and that's why I'm going to give The Lobster a 9 out of 10, but I must warn you that if you feel you can't cope with this film for longer than the first twenty minutes, then it's not for you. This is definitely a cult film for the ages, but won't be a big hit with general audiences.

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• An Absurdist Screwball Comedy

  Albert_Orr2015-07-31

  The Lobster is a surreal deadpan comedy about the strangeness of social pressures and modern relationships. The setting is a bleak, tightly controlled hotel on the coast of Ireland. David (Colin Farrell), a recently divorced Architect, is given 40 days to find a partner or else be transformed into an animal of his choosing; in this case, a lobster. Sound strange? That's just the first 10 minutes. Guests of the hotel are subjected to routine trips to shoot 'loners' with tranquillisers, and awkward high-school dances to entice singles to mingle. As David's days start running out, he decides to feign common interest with a heartless woman in order to escape his fate. But can he pull it off? Farrell really hits the mark with this role, displaying awkward machismo and fragile humility in equal measure. His comedic timing is matched only by his supporting cast that includes John C. Reilly, Ashley Jensen, and Olivia Coleman. Rachel Weisz is also spot-on as the short-sighted woman. The Lobster has just about everything you'd want from a film. It's unpredictable, it's offbeat, and it's laugh-out-loud funny. But it's most impressive feature is the subtext - it manages to reflect how odd our own modern-day social pressures are. How loneliness is feared, how individuality loses out to the mainstream system, and how relationships have to be deemed 'legitimate' by some higher order. There's plenty to talk about with this film, and I'll definitely be seeing it again to delve a little deeper....

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• Weird, Whacky & Wicked But Also Dull, Sterile & Vapid.

  CinemaClown2015-12-18

  Weird, whacky & wicked but equally dull, sterile & vapid, The Lobster is a strange beast that actually begins quite well but tumbles down the road after the halfway mark to conclude on a rather uninteresting note. The concept is no doubt intriguing and it takes its time to make us familiar to the society inhabiting its tale but all of it doesn't amount to much in the end & it fails to leave any lasting impression. Set in a dystopian future, The Lobster presents a world in which single people are arrested & taken to a hotel where they are obliged to find a matching partner within 45 days or they are transformed into animals & released into the woods. The plot follows David who arrives at the hotel for the same reason but his endeavours of finding a mate before his time is over ends far more tragically than he expected. Co-written & directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, The Lobster marks his English-language debut and the idea & inspiration behind it is both clever & admirable. The sequences taking place in the hotel are nicely carried out but its second half lacks the same level of creativity that's present in the first half. The excitement goes missing once the protagonist leaves the hotel and from there on, it just limps throughout its remaining runtime. The hotel is neatly maintained but it also has a creepy vibe about it. Camera movements are fluid, colour hues wonderfully compliment its overcast ambiance and lighting seems natural for the most part. Editing allows the plot to unfold at an unhurried pace but the whole story feels twice as long because of that, with no idea of where it's headed. Last, the background score is just as odd as the story's content and is intermittently utilised. Coming to the performances, The Lobster features a fine cast in Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw & John C. Reilly and most of them are simply bland & lifeless in their respective roles. It can be argued that the spiritless rendition of these scripted people was deliberate but it doesn't really help in enriching the experience, at all. The deadpan wit is occasionally amusing but it's also too easy to get frustrated by whatever is happening. On an overall scale, The Lobster is an uncanny mix of bizarre ideas that, in its effort to play with multiple things at once, may end up drifting many of its viewers. While I found nothing lovable about it, its parody of the society that gives way too much credit to companionship, in addition to the dig it takes at those match-making algorithms which rely on similar traits & likeness factor is one aspect I liked but in all seriousness, The Lobster is too mediocre to be of any significance.

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• A remarkable oddity of a film

  Cjalln12015-10-18

  "The Lobster" takes the tropes and expectations of modern-day relationships and satirises them almost out of existence. The farcical "Hotel" aims to partner 'loner' humans with each other (based on 1 characteristic) in a stress-inducing timeframe of 45 days, often resulting in deception and the suppression of true feelings in order to garner a relationship as a means of escape. The other side of the coin is the outcast tribe living a meagre existence in the woods, where even flirting is punished with physical mutilation. The cold mechanical delivery of every single character's lines emphasises the absurdity of the situation, and bizarrely makes the jokes even funnier. Not since Richard Ayoade's "The Double" has cripplingly awkward humour been so effective. This film has a lot to say about the fickle nature of relationships, set against the background of a dystopian society. The cinematography is as flat as the actors' delivery; this contributes to the emotionally-stunted, often silent world that the characters inhabit. The ending is beautifully ambiguous and surprisingly tense for such an understated scene. A score which fluctuates from terse, rough string melodies to Italian opera heightens the sense of weird-art-film which pervades "The Lobster": definitely a film which requires full attention, reflection, and a mind open to arty weirdness, "The Lobster" is a remarkable oddity.

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