Screened in Competition at Cannes 2015 where it won the Jury Prize, The Lobster is the English-language debut of director Yorgos Lanthimos, known chiefly for his astonishing Dogtooth (2009) which kickstarted the Greek ‘weird wave’.
Dogtooth‘s renown presumably attracted The Lobster‘s eclectic ensemble cast – it stars Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, joined by Léa Seydoux, John C. Reilly, Olivia Colman and Ben Whishaw and British comic actors including Ashley Jensen and Michael Smiley.
The film depicts a dystopian near future where single people, according to bizarre new rules, are sent to a hotel where they are obliged to find a romantic partner amongst the other ‘guests’ within 45 days, or face being transformed into an animal and released into the surrounding woods.
Similar to Dogtooth in its dark, absurdist humour and its study of a rigidly constructed, dysfunctional and ultimately alienating world that offers a provocative mirror to our own, The Lobster is a surreal, hilarious and brilliantly entertaining satire that recalls British comedies like Black Mirror and Brass Eye.
Colin Farrell excels in this hilarious and bracingly weird story about love, loneliness and animals
Robbie Collin, The Telegraph
****
