According to the laws of the city, all the unmarried people will be taken to a certain hotel with the aim of forcing them to find a romantic partner who will share their life, but whoever does not find it will be turned into an animal and sent to a specific place called The Wood.
The trouble lies in the film's noncommittal tone, which too often deviates from Lanthimos' reliable deadpan. Set against the earlier films' prickliness, The Lobster seems oddly ingratiating.
The Lobster amounts to razor-sharp satire blasting away at the societal norms and constructs of relationships, but a shame that it decides to ditch its hotel setting full of intrigue
Greek director/co-writer Yorgos Lanthimos designs a distinctive dystopian world and questions the idea of typical relationships and how couples connect at a surface level.
Lanthimos forgoes easy sentiments about the transformative power of love; this may turn off some viewers, but there's a certain liberation and even some relief in knowing that societal pressure to settle down can be just as cruel as loneliness.
The Lobster is well-acted and its weird internal logic scrupulously maintained, but as the second half dragged endlessly on, I found its point as elusive as its ending.
It is quite a miracle Lanthimos got this film to work. Not because of how leftfield it is, but because of the amount of international input that excels in it.
The Lobster argues that the kind of pressure society places on us to find a soulmate can lead to reckless choices. But the movie gives the alternative - people who are happy being single - the same radical treatment.
