What Relationships Are Like

Rating: 10/10 (11 September 2019)

Rather than show the trappings of singleness as they are, Lanthimos shows how they feel. It feels like everyone is watching you and evaluating. It feels like you are just looking for something to have in common with other people. It feels like you are just faking it until someone accepts you or else you enter into this sort of forever other life where you no longer matter to anyone because society is for coupe and children, not singles.
By creating a world totally unlike our own, Lanthimos is able to highlight feelings that we all relate to rather than situation only a few of us might relate to. We all know what it is like to have sexual experiences that leave us unsatisfied although, hopefully, very few have ever had the experience as it is portrayed in this film.
That is the strength of it though. At the end of the film when Rachel Weisz ("The Fountain") is waiting for Colin Farrell ("In Bruges") to return to her, we as the audience can sense the tension of a young woman awaiting her groom in the honeymoon suite, or a groom standing at the front of the church waiting for the doors to open, wondering if his bride will be there or has she run off? We feel the fear and pain of telling a hard truth to a husband and waiting to find out if he will stay and endure the hard work to rebuild or leave for easier relationships.
The themes in this film cause it rise above simple dark comedy and absurdist situations. It makes the film funny and sweet and daring.
Of course the writing and acting help it along as they are both stellar examples of their respective arts. The writing slants just off of normal leaving the viewer with an immediate impression of alienation and solitude. The voice over narration has a calculated cold just-the-facts attitude which has clinical scientific aftertaste.
Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz's performances, likewise, do much to convey a sense of confusion, trepidation, excitement, and reservedness which mixes rarely well, not alienating completely the audience yet never giving them the warm comfort of false and easy relationship that so many rom-coms exult in bestowing upon their viewers. They are the performances of wonderful actors who have known the thrill of those sorts of rom-com romances but also can understand those relationships from a mature place of understanding.
The whole film is beautifully wrapped up, so to speak in a lingering shot of Rachel Weisz, wondering if Colin Farrell is coming back or not. If he doesn't, she is doomed to die. If he does, they will live on together, closer than ever, but he must blind himself for this to occur.
Will he come back? Will he be able to do it? Does he love me that much?
For some reason this long hold on her in this diner booth landed on me with a real heaviness that I felt in my bones.