Critics & snobs love films like this--audiences don't.

Rating: 2/10 (8 July 2016)

That pretty well sums up my overall impression of this film, that I admittedly had high curiosity and hopes for.
This is a film, like Pi, filled with many non-absorbent instances and images that culminates into nothing but stagnation, ultimately.
Now, granted, one man's pretension is another man's secret identity. And I get what they were going for: They were hoping to make a dark comedy about the societal pressure to be mated, and the scarlet letter on anyone's back who is alone. That's clear in the first several short scenes. So, the film accomplished its goal before the 10 minute mark. From there, it limps to a black screen - no ending, no resolution, or even a hint at continuation. Just a feeling that they ran out of either film or ideas.
This is a 'piece' about a man who checks into a resort for people who have come to their last hopes of finding a person to live their existences with. Sort of Howard's End-cum-Hotel California, in that no one can leave, and everyone only speaks once an hour in a monotone. The gist is that if they don't find a mate, they turn into a member of the animal kingdom. 'OK, not a bad idea, they could go somewhere with this...' I so naively think to myself after the first 4 minutes. And from there, we have the parade of statues: Characters introduced as fellow residents and meant to bring some humanity in the form of interaction. They forgot, however, to give them any substance. A nosebleed isn't a 'quirk', I'm sorry. If the actors had been directed to speak in more than one timbre, and had been written dialogue that didn't amount to a "minutes of the meeting" memo, then maybe they could have had something.
So, after some milling, the main 'character' tried to cuckold another 'character' and fails. So he leaves and finds himself embraced by another group with a separate set of standards and clothing that the group he just fled. And that about all as far as differences. The group has the same hollow, banal intonations as the people we were just tired of. And the same prattle happens all over again.
This has the label of Dark Comedy. But, 'dark' does not mean colorless; and, sudden gasps at horrific snap-cut deaths & mutilations do not constitute laughter, which one expects from a comedy.
As I said in the title, snobs will flock to this film because it gives them a perfect chance to say their favorite line: "Well, you just didn't get it." I just love hearing people say this. Why? Because it is usually said right after someone asks for their overall impression or opinion or reflections of what they just saw. I will never forget the time I saw a movie with some friend of a friend that was ... I think it might have been 'Pi'. I asked what he thought of that ending. He literally snapped his jaw up in the air and said, "Well, if you didn't get it, I certainly won't be able to explain it to you." I looked at him & said, "You don't get it either, do you?" He laughed, but he didn't deny what I said. 'The Lobster' is going to be THAT kind of film, you just watch. So many people have already said the 7-paragraph equivalent of 'You just didn't get it' already on here. I may get some in reply.
Well, you know what, my gentle 'parvenu-bies'? I got it. Everyone got it, and people who see it after this will get it.
Art means something different to everyone who views it; that's why film is art. And I will not dismiss this as art simply because I'm of the opinion that 'The Lobster' is the cinematic equivalent of waiting for the nurse to guide you back into the waiting room after a routine checkup.
Personally, if I wanted to watch an hour and a half of culminated silence peppered with 10 minutes of flaccid dialogue, I certainly wouldn't pay for that - I'd go to an empty theater before a movie starts. It would have been a more meaningful experience.