To the Lobster Go the Spoils

Welp, I had to know what The Lobster (2015) was like after seeing the Killing of a Sacred Deer.  In episode 37 of our podcast, My Bleeding Ears, I reviewed The Lobster.  It managed to depress me even more.  What seemed to be advertised as a quirky love story, is easily as bleak as Sacred Deer.  More so to me on a personal level, because while I don’t have experience with my children suffering from an unknown illness due to a revenge plot executed by a psychopath whose father died on my operating table, I do have experience in romantic relationships, both short and long-term.  

The movie opens on two donkeys in a field. A woman drives up, approaches one of the donkeys, shoots it several times until it dies, and runs away.  A narration of the story of “The Lobster” begins, voiced by Rachel Weisz.  She will narrate the entire film. 

We cut to David (Colin Farrell) focusing on his wife, who has told him she’s in love with someone else.  In this dystopian universe, this means that David will now need to check into “The Hotel,” where he has 45 days to find a mate or he’ll be turned into an animal.  The mate he picks must have similar attributes and must be approved by The Hotel management.

At The Hotel, David is being interviewed.  (Also he’s brought his brother, who has been turned into a dog. This will be important later.) He has to choose whether he prefers women or men.  He first says women, but then casually notes that he experimented with a man in college and asks if he really needs to choose.  He does.  After some thought, he decides that he will select a heterosexual lifestyle, rather than homosexual.  He is then asked what kind of animal he would like to become should he not find a mate in 45 days.  He immediately chooses a lobster, because “lobsters live for over one hundred years, are blue-blooded like aristocrats, and stay fertile all their lives. I also like the sea very much.” (In the podcast I said it was because they mate for life.  My mistake.  I was clearly thinking of something else)  David is fitted with a belt that has a lock on it and shown to his room.

We find out that the residents of The Hotel go out at night to capture the single people in The Woods, who are then turned into animals.  For every single person you capture, you are awarded one more day at The Hotel. 

In the mess hall (or whatever it is), David meets a man with a lisp (John C. Reilly) and a man with a limp (Ben Whishaw), as well as a “heartless woman,” a woman with chronic nosebleeds and her best friend, and a woman who loves biscuits. 

Let’s cruise through some important things that happen in the film and get on with it:

The Man with the Limp tells a story of how his mother was turned into a wolf, and when he went to visit her at the zoo, he jumped the fence of the enclosure and was attacked by wolves, leaving him with a limp.  He says there were two wolves that did not attack, and he’s sure one of them must have been his mother.  The Man with the Lisp is caught masturbating, which is forbidden, so he has his hand burned in a toaster as punishment.  The Man with the Limp is interested in the Woman with Nosebleeds (I’m sorry guys, but David is really the only one with a name), so he begins to smash his face on tables and walls to convince her that he also gets nosebleeds, and that makes them a match.  Hotel staff agrees, and they pair off.  The Woman with Nosebleeds says goodbye to her best friend, saying she’ll miss her, among other things.  Her best friend abruptly slaps her in the face and demands to be turned into an animal right away. 

This isn't from the movie but I couldn't find an
image, so this is the same actress injured in a
different thing.

David is propositioned by the Biscuit Woman.  She says she plans to kill herself before her time at The Hotel is up by jumping out of a fourth-floor window.  And if you, like me, immediately said to yourself, “Um that probably won’t kill you,” then you should know that we were both right. She eventually jumps and is severely injured.  David pretends not to care, in order to win the favor of the Heartless Woman.  After a few displays of sociopathic indifference from David, the Heartless Woman agrees they are a match, and they are moved into the couples’ suite.  One day, David awakens to the Heartless Woman stating that she kicked his brother (the dog) to death.  When he finds his brother dead, he begins to weep and she reveals it was a test that he has failed.  She is going to turn him into The Hotel management to be turned into an animal. The tables turn on her with the help of The Maid, who turns out to be a mole for the single people in The Woods, and David turns the Heartless Woman into an unknown animal. 

It’s very sweet and I hoped this would
end on a happy note because I am foolish.

David escapes into The Woods and meets a band of single people, including the Shortsighted Woman (Rachel Weisz).  He is also shortsighted, and they fall in love, which is forbidden by the Leader in The Woods.  They develop a code of hand signals to say things like, “I love you more than anything,” “I want to dance in your arms,” “watch out, we’re in danger,” “Let’s fuck,” etc.  

The Leader discovers their relationship and takes the Shortsighted Woman to the city under the pretense that she will have surgery to fix her shortsightedness.  Instead, the operation is meant to blind her, and it does.  She returns to David and admits that she is blind.  They work very hard to find other things in common, but nothing really clicks and OMG YOU GUYS, LOVE IS FUTILE AND I’M SO SAD AND IT’S NOT EVEN OVER.

The Shortsighted Woman is sitting by a window, and I almost expected 

to see David running away through said window, but I didn’t.  Did I miss 

it or are we really left to wonder?  I hope we’re left to wonder.

David and the Shortsighted Woman plan to escape together.  They go to a diner, and David goes to the bathroom to blind himself so that they can be together. In the bathroom, it looks as if he’s about to do it. The movie ends with the camera on the Shortsighted Woman sitting at the table, nervously waiting for David to return.  The screen goes black.  The End. 

This movie is an analysis of romantic relationships.  What would you change about yourself to stay with someone? Are we meant to find a soulmate?  Is sex important to you or just intimacy? Does sexual orientation have to be defined? Would you keep up a lie just to be with someone? What would you sacrifice for someone you believe you love more than anything?  What can you forgive?

The mandate of choosing to be heterosexual or homosexual is interesting.  I think the Millennial generation is teaching us that requiring this choice is absurd, and shouldn’t need to be made. I don’t mean to say that sexual orientation is a choice.  That is also absurd.  I mean, what does gender matter when it comes to finding companionship?  Spoilers: it doesn’t.  I think that was the point this film was trying to make, along with the point that having similar attributes is not necessarily a good formula for a partnership.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is easily my favorite rom-com.
If that's what you'd call it.  

I compared Yorgos Lanthimos to Michel Gondry in the last podcast (episode 36), and I only meant the execution of a vision, not the style.  Gondry seems to believe that there are always aspects and moments of a relationship that make the experience worth it, whether it works out in the end or not.  Lanthimos has a much darker take on romantic love.  (Or I suppose one could argue that he believes that no two people are destined to be together, relationships take work, and losing commonalities as time goes on is inevitable. Gondry probably feels that way, too.)

You never find out if David comes back to the table in the diner, but considering the Shortsighted Woman is narrating the story, and it’s CALLED THE LOBSTER, the animal David chose to become at the beginning, I’m inclined to believe it did not end happily ever after.  

In conclusion, I’m pretty glum, y’all. However, I do have this new weird obsession with Colin Farrell.  The movie isn’t funny, but some of the things he does are funny. Sad/funny. Where you giggle and then groan in pain. He nails it. It would take too long to describe the scenarios, but he’s brilliant.  I will officially be arrested if I see him on the street.  Or maybe he’ll be into it, who can say?

Like the Killing of a Sacred Deer, I do want to see The Lobster again, because I’m sure there are lots of little nuggets that I missed.  Lanthimos deftly jam-packs his movies with symbolism and metaphor.  I mean, look how long this blog is, and I did the best I could to keep it short while still including moments I really thought needed to be included to drive the narrative. (I still didn't get to them all.)  It’s just that I don’t think I can put my soul through a re-watch of either film.  

Watch this movie, because it’s very good, but then go do something fun, or buy your lover a gift you know they’ll like, or tell them you love them, or try to find more things in common, or all of the above.  And if you’re single, watch this movie, because it’s very good, and then go do something fun and---that’s really it. You’re not in a relationship, so that should be easy.  (Larry, my darling husband, I love you more than anything, so don’t worry about the stuff I just said about single people. And Colin Farrell.) 

Grade: A

The Lobster

Written and Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Cast:

Colin Farrell……………………………….David

Rachel Weisz……………………………..Shortsighted Woman

Ben Whishaw……………………………..Limping Man

John C. Reilly……………………………...Lisping Man

Léa Seydoux……………………………….The Leader in The Woods

Jessica Barden……………………………Nosebleed Woman

EmmaEdel O'Shea……………………..Nosebleed Woman's Best Friend (as Emma O'Shea)

Angeliki Papoulia……………………….Heartless Woman

Ashley Jensen…………………………….Biscuit Woman

Olivia Colman…………………………….Hotel Manager

Ariane Labed……………………………..The Maid

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