‘The Lobster’ puts a twist on dating
Helmed by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, the film has became the year’s most unlikey date movie
It’s Sunday evening and I’m standing in the queue for a showing of The Lobster. Couples gaze romantically into each other’s eyes. “I can’t wait to see this,” a blonde girl tells her date excitedly. A few lone cinema-goers shuffle awkwardly. Two hours later, it’s a different story. The couples emerge shell-shocked, barely touching, while the singles look rather triumphant. Either way, a lot is drunk at the bar as debate rages about the film, a love story set in the near future, where it’s against the law to be single. Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster is the little film that roared. Released last month, as most cinema-goers were awaiting the new Bond movie, it has since broken the one million pounds (Dh5,482,576 )barrier at the UK box office. “For the last two nights, it’s outsold Spectre,” says Toby King, cinema manager at Picturehouse Central off Leicester Square. So how did an Irish-UK-Greek-French-Dutch co-production become the autumn’s hottest date movie? Or should that be “anti-date movie”?
True, it has a stellar cast, including Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Lea Seydoux. But, more importantly, the film taps into our fear that society only approves of us if we’re coupled up. And that relying on modern dating apps such as Tinder is just making us feel more lonely and alienated. “Going to the movies is itself rather like a date, whether it’s with your partner or someone you don’t know well yet, and The Lobster takes that and spins it round in very disturbing ways,” says King.
In The Lobster, when your relationship ends (whether you’re ditched, lovelorn or widowed), you’re expelled from the city and sent to live in a hotel resort, and are given 45 days to find a mate. Anyone who fails to fall in love is turned into an animal (lobster, wolf, penguin). One of the funniest moments is when a newly divorced Colin Farrell arrives at the hotel and introduces his dog, Bob, as “my brother — he was here a couple of years ago, he didn’t make it”. The film satirises the need to define sexuality by tick-box (in the opening scene, a receptionist tells Farrell that bisexuality has been abandoned, “This option is no longer available, sir, due to several operational problems”).
Surely we deserve a more generous attitude to difference? The Lobster is Greek director Lanthimos’s English-language debut. But the film’s marketing campaign has also brought in a mainstream audience. Gabriel Swartland, of Picturehouse Entertainment, which co-distributes the film, says, “Our strategy was to build anticipation for the release by pushing the comedic elements of the film without giving too much away. It has a fantastic cast and a pretty bonkers premise: what animal would you be turned into if you couldn’t find a mate in 45 days? We took that idea and got people asking the same question. I like to think that when the film opened, there was a real sense of ‘Have you heard about this bizarre film? I have to go and see it’”
A couple of cinemas organised a speed-dating event, turning what some people felt was the worst date movie into a talking point. Because that is the underlying message of this film. We need to talk to each other, not rely on algorithims on dating sites and apps. In the world of The Lobster, partner compatibility is based on the most superficial similarities: being good at maths, enjoying biscuits, or a shared vulnerability such as a limp or constant nosebleeds. If you get a match, the new “couple” are sent on a cruise to cement the relationship.
Though, as Colman observes dryly, if you encounter tension or arguments you can’t resolve, “you will be assigned children that usually helps a lot”. As the 45-day ultimatum loom — with no sign of Mr/Ms Right on the horizon— guests can buy extra time by going out to hunt the feral “Loners”, a group of rebels living in a wood nearby. Eventually, Farrell’s character — reeling from a disastrous encounter with the aptly-named Heartless Woman — escapes to join them, and falls for Weisz’s dark-eyed siren. But what’s so clever about the film is that although the smug couples in the hotel are awful, the militant anarchist singles aren’t a lot better. They too live by brutal rules. Anyone who betrays the group by flirting or kissing is maimed and you are expected to die in an unmarked grave that you dig yourself.
The film is certainly hitting a nerve. From Bristol to Edinburgh, screenings are packed. The irony is that many people don’t realise how dark the film is — cinema managers have reported walkouts. But it is a relief to see a comedy about more than “boy meets girl”.