[two-star-rating]Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly[/two-star-rating]
NOTE: The Lobster was supposed to open Memorial Day weekend in Orlando; it has been postponed. It will open in Tampa.
This water is so tepid in this inscrutable art flick that The Lobster never boils.
This high-concept existential piece about coupling and romance has won a lot of awards, including top prizes at the Cannes Film Fest. Though the extraordinarily weird world is intriguing, I sincerely felt the film was missing wit and speed. Instead, The Lobster is extremely ponderous and unfunny, and everyone talks and acts as if they’re in junior high and hooked on barbiturates.
Maybe that’s what you get in a tedious world where coupling is legally required. And fiercely monitored – it’s like a fascist Grandma’s dream. If things get rough, have a kid – that’s what couples do.
Anyone who doesn’t have a mate has 45 days to find one or to be turned into the animal of his or her choice. There are ways to earn more days; if you go out on a hunt and tranquilize one of the stubborn “loners” living in the woods, you get an extra day. Your prey gets turned into an animal, and you get a small respite in your desperate attempt to find a lifelong mate.
Farrell is a man whose wife has found another. So, he resigns himself to taking his brother – who was turned into a dog – and going to a hotel. At this hotel, they give him comfort and food and lessons in how to find a mate. They arouse him every day, and they ban porn and masturbation, so he’ll be desperate for companionship. They require people who do mate have one thing in common – like a limp or nosebleeds. They throw middle-school dances with cheap decorations and bad music.
Every so often, a random animal wanders through – a camel, a flamingo. These are reminders of the ones who didn’t make it.
Sure, The Lobster succeeds with a few funny comments about our society’s obsession with coupling. It certainly makes that point long before it gives up. Also, the dialogue is not nearly as comedic as its ideas merit. Instead, this film is like a great concept killed with pretention.
At least The Lobster introduces us to the loners, also. Their dictatorial commitment to single-dom is the second and last brain-tickling idea the film presents.
The big problem is the lack of entertainment value here for a viewer – criticism lots of art films deserve. The world is represented as a lonely resort hotel, the woods, or a cold city that looks like a downscale mall – nothing thrilling. Camera shots don’t move a lot. Actors are directed to give their simplistic lines in momentum-killing deadpan.
Farrell, Weisz, and the other actors do amazing work with what they’ve got. In fact, early on, Farrell often finds the emotion under the skin of his somnambulistic character. However, when he locates possible love, we don’t see any major change in his soul.
[rating-key]
The Lobster is the type of highborn film that makes regular filmgoers distrust experimentation, critics, and festival awards. It’s gotten accolades and awards, but I have a hard time feeling anyone would be overjoyed laying down ten bucks for good concepts presented in stale air. I’m guessing the only people who’d love this film are the ones who agree with its representation of “couple-or-die” mentality. No one can honestly say this film had pulse or raucous belly laughs.
Walt Disney once said, “I’d rather entertain people and hope they’d been educated, instead of educating people and hoping they’d been entertained.”
The Lobster feels the opposite. To it, forced love is passionless, and so is art. It’s perfectly fine just sitting there in the lukewarm pot, while audiences pray someone turns up the heat.
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