Director: Yorgas Lanthimos 

Running Time: 2 hours. 

Cast: Colin Farrell, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, John C Reilly, Michael Smiley, Ben Whishaw, Rachel Weisz

The Lobster is set in a near future world where the rules decree that it’s unacceptable to be single. All couples are pretty much kept separately and anyone who becomes single has to go to The Hotel. Once at The Hotel, the single people have 45 days to find a partner or they will be turned into an animal of their choosing. Of course not every single person goes willingly. Those ‘loners’ hide in the deep forests where they are hunted by the single folk of The Hotel so that they can win a day of extra life as a human, per kill. Darkly comical and yet played straight, The Lobster is a wonderful and quirky film which reminds me in tone of A Clockwork Orange. Colin Farrell leads a great cast of talented actors who all play ‘characters’ who are fully fledged oddballs. John C Reilly has a speech impediment and is almost playing it straight as are Ben Whishaw and Olivia Colman who bring their talent to the project. It’s an amusing piece of work and you can see it shining a light on society today which is obsessed with celebrity couples especially and the worth of their supposed true love which the media indulge in. Colin Farrell especially, acts brilliantly as a desperate man dumped by his wife for another man. His only friend left is his dog. I loved this film, especially second time knowing the dark tone to come. There’s a narration which is a mystery for much of the film and a score of stark classical notes which feeds into the brooding menace of The Hotel if you should break the rules. 
A twisted comedy drama which would be at home amongst Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series.

C Whitehouse