Ben Whishaw – Sip of Starrshine

I first saw a trailer for The Lobster around this time last year, but I was unable to figure out where or when it was being shown in theaters near me. I searched and searched, but figured that I had either missed its showings at smaller theaters or that it simply was on too-limited release and I’d have to wait for it to show up on a streaming service or something. The premise seemed interesting: A sad Colin Farrell and other singles have a limited amount of time to find true love. If they fail, they will be turned into the animal of their choice. (Farrell’s character, David, chooses the film’s eponymous lobster because it lives for over a hundred years, is blue-blooded like an aristocrat, is fertile throughout its entire life, and lives in the sea, as he has always loved waterskiing and swimming.)

Let me first say that I was cracking up for nearly the whole movie. It’s not stupid, crass look-at-how-funny-I-am kind of comedy. In the universe of this movie, the people clearly have no social skills. This results in some really hilarious conversations and exchanges. The awkward, stilted dialogue makes you feel so uncomfortable and you’re cringing so much and you just have no other response but laughter.

This was, hands-down, one of the greatest scenes in the movie, because 1) her dance moves are ON POINT and 2) she is me

We dance alone. That’s why we only play electronic music.

The physical humor was great. The comedic timing was excellent. Usually, when I see movies that are labelled “dark comedies”, I find them kinda funny-ish sometimes I guess. But I was stifling laughter and trying not to annoy the couple sitting in front of me with my giggles. This movie is really funny.

Starting to see a comedy trope trending with the dad bod and the sagging tighty-whities

At the same time, it’s a “dark” comedy for a reason, and that is because, well, the assumptions and rules of this world are a bit morbid. People come to this hotel when they become single, and are given 45 days to find love or be turned into animals. (Which they choose at the beginning of the stay.) Those who try to escape this fate live in the woods and are hunted by the residents of the hotel. For every Loner that a resident captures (they use tranquilizer guns to hunt, don’t worry), their stay at the hotel is extended by one day. On David’s first day, his left hand is handcuffed to the back of his pants so that he can really appreciate how much easier life is when you are part of a pair and not alone. During an assembly, hotel staff show humorously straight-faced demonstrations of what happens when you are alone (you choke on your food and die, you get sexually assaulted while walking) and when you are part of a couple (your partner saves your life, your partner wards off would-be assailants). Masturbation is punished, as it is an example of self-pleasure, and we see that the punishment is having your hand placed in a hot toaster! (OUCH) Every day, the residents are brought to arousal, likely as a means of motivation to finding their partner. (This scene was one of the funniest in the entire movie, and you have to wonder how they do this for women. A scene later maybe sheds some light on this.) Residents are only permitted to do solo things, like play golf, and are not allowed to do group/team/pairs activities like tennis. The rules are harsh and strictly enforced, and it is all meant to make people want to be paired up more.

I was confused by these rules a little bit. For example, is it compulsory to check into the hotel after your relationship ends? It seems like everyone is here after their spouses leave them some way or another. What about the two very young girls who are best friends and at the hotel at the same time? How did that work out, exactly? Were they originally in a romantic relationship with each other, maybe? Is it legally required to check in after your relationship ends, perhaps? There is a scene where David and our narrator, Rachel Weisz, are in the city and David is very nervous when a cop approaches him and asks about his partner. Are people not allowed to be single, by law? Or, are they so desperate to be in a relationship, either because of their own insecurities or because it affords them better opportunities in this world, that they voluntarily go all-in to find love in this hotel. Are there a lot more hotels like this? Is this one of many? Is it a chain, do these hotels compete? How are they even funded, do the people pay to stay there?

This movie, in all its ridiculousness, says so much about what we look for in relationships and how wrong we can be. Every resident of the hotel introduced themselves very matter-of-factly and mentioned a defining characteristic. The implication throughout the movie is that couples had one big thing in common, for example: both have a limp, both are short-sighted (near-sighted, but read into the double entendre there how you will), both get frequent nosebleeds. This was so telling because people were willing to fake what they had in common with a potential partner in order to find love and leave the hotel. It reminded me a lot of how online dating works today, and how we put these fairly superficial traits on our profiles and look for people who have the same ones. When your criteria for messaging someone is “Oh, her favorite band is Muse, too!”, you have to wonder if that’s really the best way to find love. At the same time, when you only have a limited amount of time – like, say, 45 days before being permanently turned into an animal – what else are you meant to go on to determine who out of the hundreds of thousands of millions of people out there is worth your time in trying to forge a relationship with? For the people in the hotel, did they have much time to learn more about each other without some entry point of “Hey! I speak German too!” to start the relationship off?

Another thing I noticed (before we head into spoiler territory) is the movie nails how intolerant our world can be of grey areas. David is frequently forced to choose absolutes when he wants to live in the in-betweens. When he checks into the hotel (as we see in the trailer), he is asked his sexual preference and indicates that he prefers women… but he did have one homosexual experience in school. “Is there a bisexual option?” “No, I’m afraid we no longer offer bisexual preference. I’m afraid you have to decide right now whether to register as a heterosexual or homosexual.” And he hesitates for a long time. It is one of the only times we see a very deliberate, er, deliberation in this hotel where you are choosing who you will spend your life with. If he chooses one over the other, he cannot ever experience the other ever again. “I think I should be registered as a heterosexual”, he finally decides. We see this again after he exchanges all of his belongings for the clothes provided by the hotel. (I kind of liked that the hotel made everyone conform in this way. You would not be influenced by someone’s style; just who they were. Or that one thing you have in common. At the same time, though, maybe someone’s style is a big part of who they are and you’ll never know until you leave the hotel with them.) When asked for his shoe size, David replies that he is a 44.5. “44 or 45? We do not have half-sizes.” Again, we see him hesitate for a brief moment before he resigns himself to wearing a size 45.

Oh man, I went into this movie expecting to roll my eyes at lot at some auteur piece with humor that I didn’t get and wasted stars (like some directors do to me) but I really loved The Lobster. If you are able to catch it in theaters, I highly HIGHLY recommend that you do. It’s a pretty beautiful movie as well, and I was engaged and enjoyed the movie throughout, until the end… which was when I felt really uncomfortable but not in a bad way.