Offbeat, very black comedy – not for everyone

Rating: 7/10 (28 August 2017)

In a dystopian world, where single people are required to find appropriate partners or be turned into animals, a counterculture of loners exist, where romantic relationships are punished by mutilation. Colin Ferrell's character, whose wife has left him, moves from one culture, in which he has decided to become a lobster if he cannot find a mate, to the other, where he falls in love with Rachel Weisz's character, and suffers the consequences. The movie is slow moving, dead-pan and surreal – whimsical in some places, coarse and brutal in others. Cryptic and metaphorical, the story takes place in three locations: 'the hotel', where you need to find a mate, 'the woods' where the loners roam, and 'the city' where couples live. Keeping with the premise that you need to find your match rather than an autonomous person, few of the characters have names, but rather are known by a 'characteristic' (e.g. girl with nose bleeds) that is the basis for initial pairing (if a singleton) or by their job (e.g. 'the maid). Funny at times, especially when the po-faced hotel management are explaining the system, but certainly not for all tastes.