Weird. Kooky, Fascinating.

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2016)

The Lobster, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Lanthimos and a collaborator, Efthymis Fillippou, is not a film that you can easily forget if you're in the dating world at all. The setup is pretty simple. If you become single for any reason you're sent to a hotel out in the country where you have 45 days to couple up. The catch is that you're first subjected to a completely invasive strip search and indoctrination period as if you've committed some crime, and then you've got to select an animal which you will become if you don't find a partner. The film starts off with a scene of a woman walking up to a bovine in the woods and shooting it dead. Why? It was probably her ex- boyfriend. This hotel is not exactly going to be on anyone's vacation itinerary.
For the director, it is his first English language film. That is pretty impressive, because he's doing some kind of a deep dive in to the whole crazy world of online dating and modern relationships without going online or being in the modern world. The dialog is mostly delivered with a flat, emotionless tone, but the things the characters say are sometimes so bizarre you'll be wondering if you heard that right. You may have your laundry list of likes and dislikes or you may just be swiping left and right and figuring that stuff out later. Or not at all. Here at the hotel, people are coupling up if they share bloody noses or have a love of biscuits, and your perfect mate is waiting when you're both cold, mean and heartless.
The cast did a wonderful job with this odd piece of art-house fare. Colin Farrell with a belly plays the lead and was a great choice, showing he can play a role with very limited range but still make it believable. He's recently divorced and arrives at the hotel with his dog, which just happens to be his brother. We've also got Ben Wishaw as "Limping Man" and John C. Reilly as "Lisping Man." Reilly is always a pleasure to watch and he really brings the desperation as his days grow shorter, and he's the recipient of the hotel's painful penalty for masturbation, which is prohibited. Lea Seydoux coldly plays the leader of the loners in the woods. Are the woods a better place than the hotel? Everybody seems to be living by a set of rules that aren't exactly liberating. Heard mostly in voice-over is Rachel Weisz, and I kept wondering if I was mistaken in thinking she was going to be in the film. She finally does appear giving the film the closest thing to an identifiable human for the audience to connect with.
The film careens along its weird way for 90 minutes and I was just looking at every inch of the screen for clues to what was going to happen. I felt like it was a mix of Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick and a little bit of Ed Wood, in that I'd like to think that everyone working on this just loved doing it. The direction was solid with some odd touches of framing, and the set design and cinematography matched the dialog. However, I thought the pace slowed down in the final stretch after Farrell "escapes" the hotel and he and Weisz try to live like "normal" people. I guess this was a difficult concept because we really don't know what normal people are in this world. Eventually, things come to a close and just like any date, sometimes you walk away and you're just not sure there's going to be another one. Only in this case, there are some excruciatingly painful moments along the way. Still, I'm glad I went on this one.