The Lobster Review

This review comes straight from my Letterboxd profile, where you can read hundreds of reviews like this if you want to.

The Lobster is most certainly an off-kilter movie with an unconventional narrative. I've been wanting to watch this movie for years ever since I saw The Favourite, also directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and somehow this movie is even stranger than The Favourite. Well, I guess with a premise as niche as this, I should have seen that coming, but there was some almost out-of-touch charm to this movie that still managed to take me off guard as I continued watching it. It's bleak, its tone is incredibly depressing, but somehow, there's something about this film that latches onto your subconscious and encourages you to think about it. I'm blown away that a film like this was actually nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars. Don't get me wrong, I think it deserves it, but this is the type of film that is usually ignored by the Academy, the kind that is so inaccessible to most people that nobody acknowledges it come awards season. However, I think this concept is so unique and the style of this film so original that even though I still haven't been able to completely wrap my mind around this film's message, it feels like it deserves the nomination.

Colin Farrell gives a fantastically quirky and charming lead performance, but even though he's the standout of this movie, everyone else is also fantastic. Lea Seydoux, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw, Olivia Colman, and John C. Reiley also give very likable and strange performances, and this movie's tone is all the better for them. You often can't tell whether or not you're supposed to like any of these characters, even if you can understand where they're coming from, so the film becomes a morally ambiguous exploration of a very strange concept that some people will be able to get behind and some people won't. What I personally found most engaging about this movie's story is how it explored the difficulties of connecting with other people and finding a romantic attachment. Often, people can become so desperate to find a romantic partner that they'll go outside the box and say and do outrageous things thinking it's the right thing to do to get their attention, and oftentimes, it just makes things worse or more awkward. It's hard finding that right match, and this movie demonstrates that not only is it hard finding someone that matches your interests, but it's also hard finding someone that is different enough from you that the connection doesn't become stale.

In every way, The Lobster is original and unconventional, and this is one of those films I can completely understand if general audience members are turned away by it or even if someone just doesn't like in general. It's a strangely told film, but it's one that I have a feeling I'm gonna be thinking about for days because of just how bold it's willing to be to tell its story. If you're looking for a weird movie, definitely check this film out, because in my opinion, aside from some narration that mostly seems to repeat dialogue exchanges that we just witnessed (and seemingly treats the audience like idiots in the process) and the fact that I haven't quite wrapped my head around this thing yet, I really dug this movie. Hopefully, more filmmakers will be willing to come out with strange and unconventional stories like this because unique stories like this deserve to be told through film, even if it's not for everyone.

Letter Grade: A

[Oh, and edit after I wrote this review, you wanna know why I ended up watching this movie after all these years? I wanted to see if this absurdist film involving a lobster could help me maybe pin down my thoughts on Dua Lipa's new music video "We're Good," which is also an absurdist piece of media involving lobsters. It was a strange conclusion to jump to, but I was so confused about the music video and what I thought of it when I saw it for the first time yesterday that I talked to my mom and a friend of mine about it. The friend compared the absurdist message to this film, so... there you go. What a random reason to watch a film, but it was worth it. I still don't know whether or not I like how that music video executed its metaphors, though.]